


Cross the Sun

by Elwa



Series: Psychic Shawn [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Ghosts, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mystery, Psychic Abilities, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:14:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwa/pseuds/Elwa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn sees dead people.  Not to mention psychotic, revenge seeking cops, and a super awesome but probably insane vampire hunter, but you don’t have to be psychic for those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: death, violence…ok nothing really that you wouldn’t normally find in watching a psych episode. Oh, and it does contain a male pairing and homophobia
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Psych, nor am I making any money from this.

**1985**

Gus stared up at the bulging colorful array that strained for the sky, tugging at its leash.  The basket swayed gently beneath it, small and flimsy looking.  That tiny, open basket was meant to be all that came between him and a deadly plummet to the distant ground. 

Shawn eyed the basket as well, his expression a mixture between awe, excitement, and fear.  He took half a step forward, only to find himself held back by a surprisingly hard grip to his shirt.  He turned to see Gus frozen, clinging tightly.  A short but urgent conversation followed in low voices.  Shawn reminded Gus about the super coolness of flight, of Gus’s beloved comic book heroes, even appealing to his pride as a man.  Gus continued to shake his head vehemently and ended by running beneath the nearby bleachers just as Shawn’s dad returned from talking to the ticket man.

“Alright, ready to go?” he said, before his eyes darted around and his brow furrowed at the distinct lack of Shawn’s friend.  Shawn’s eyes darted towards Gus where he continued to crouch in the shadows, close enough to hear what was going on but far enough that he could run if anyone made a move to drag him into the basket by force.

“Where’s Gus?” Mr. Spencer asked, despite the fact that Shawn’s eyes had already given it away.

“He…uh, he said he can’t go,” Shawn answered evasively, his loyalty warring with his fear that Gus’s defection would ruin Shawn’s own chances at a balloon ride.

“Oh?” Mr. Spencer said, before approaching the bleachers slantwise, but directed his question towards his son, “And why is that?”

“Because…” Shawn answered, hesitating briefly before blurting out, “he’s a vampire!”  Once the initial shock of the ludicrous notion made it out into the open, Shawn relaxed into the lie.  “He didn’t want to tell you, but it’s true.  Last night he was bitten and drained, and now he’s the walking undead.”

“Oh?” Shawn’s dad said, “And vampires can’t ride in hot air balloons?”

“Of course not!” Shawn answered, his voice sounding exasperated at having to point out the obvious, “He’d get fried by the sunlight!”

“Is that right?” Mr Spencer asked, finally turning to look directly at Gus who was still huddled under the bleachers, waiting to see what the final verdict would be.  He didn’t agree or disagree with Shawn’s story, being disinclined to lie but finding the truth equally distasteful.

“You know,” Mr. Spencer said, kneeling down so that he was more or less at Gus’s level, “Sometimes the best way to get over a fear of the sunlight is to step into the sun.”

“Do you want him to burn to death!” Shawn exclaimed, “I really think we should leave him here.  We can come back after the balloon ride.”

“Oh no,” his dad answered, “We stay together.  We all go or none of us go.”  Gus and Shawn both frowned, then Gus looked down at the ground.  It was one thing to refuse to go.  It was another thing to not let anyone else go either.  Mr. Spencer waited.  Gus began to shift nervously, his eyes darting to his friend and then to the balloon once more.  From this distance it wasn’t quite so imposing as up close.  But that didn’t mean he wanted to do it.  Shawn too was looking at the balloon with longing in his eyes.  He watched as some children peered out of it, one holding tightly to their cotton candy, and then it started to rise above the fairground.

“I…” Gus began to say, a slight tremble in his voice.  His eyes got a determined look as he watched the balloon rise, tugging at its anchor.  Shawn could see it in his eyes; Gus was ready to do this.  Then Shawn sighed as he pulled up some determination of his own.  Gus started to speak again, “I guess…”

“Actually,” Shawn interrupted quickly, shifting on his feet, sliding slightly to make sure he was completely in the shade, “We’re both vampires.”

**Present Day**

Justin Rivers leaned slightly out of the basket as the wind swept his hair and he looked down, trying to see in his mind’s eye how it was going to go.  He knew he should come down; Lexie would be there soon but for the moment it was just him in the basket along with the roses and the picnic basket.  And the box, of course.  The all important but pocket-sized box that would hopefully finish their evening with another reason to celebrate.

Below him was water and sand. The evening was still young; a few children pointed excitedly towards his balloon but most walked under it ignorant of its presence.  He watched the walkers in an absentminded way.  The light was dim as the sun had just set which was disappointing.  He had planned on timing it so they would see the sunset together but Lexie had called earlier about a delay.  No matter; a night in sky under the stars would work just as well.  Perhaps they could stay up all night and see the sunrise.  Justin continued to drift, considering bringing the balloon down but he really wanted to wait for Lexie to arrive and find the surprise.  So he watched.

He saw the shadowed figures but didn’t see them.  Or rather, he didn’t notice them at first.  In the darkness below the people passed from streetlight to streetlight, hard to see between the gloom and the too bright lights.  But he did notice the figure at last, because it was moving towards the beach and he had wondered, for one brief moment, if it might be his date.  Except the person was too big, and anyway, Lexie didn’t go for black clothes.  This person moved like a shadow in the night, and they were moving towards another figure.

There wasn’t anything really odd about that, but Justin got a sudden sense of unease all the same.  He didn’t hear any distant shouts of greeting, not that the sound would probably carry anyway.  But something looked…off.  He fingered his cellphone, ready to call…someone.  His phone suddenly rang, startling him into dropping it.

“Hello?” he said when he finally managed to fumble it open, not taking the time to check the caller id in his hurry to answer before it stopped ringing.

“Where are you?” demanded a familiar voice and Justin swiftly moved to look over the side again, grinning slightly, the mysterious figure forgotten.  He could see Lexie below on the beach, looking around impatiently.

“Look up,” Justin answered, and when he saw the figure below shift their head, he waved.

“Justin?!” Lexie cried in a surprised and excited voice.  Justin waved for a second longer then moved to the controls while still listening to Lexie gush over the phone.  He intended to bring the balloon down so Lexie could climb in.  But it was more or less at that moment that the balloon exploded.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“All right, what have we got?” the detective asked as he strolled past the police tape.  His partner followed a step behind, pulling off her sunglasses as they left the sunny beach for the cool shadows under the pier.

“Same as the last two times,” one of the officers answered, gesturing towards the blue-ish gray body, “Looks like asphyxiation to me.”  Lassiter’s vision narrowed in on the corpse, blocking out the photographers and various officers intent upon their various jobs.  He slowly removed his own glasses, shifting closer to get a better look.  The skin had a definite blue tinge to it, making it look bruised.  The eyes were closed, the features relaxed and peaceful; no obvious signs of a struggle.  If the killing held true to form, the autopsy would report no puncture wounds either, no strangle marks.

Lassiter avoided, but couldn’t help but subconsciously categorize the other details that would transform the still figure before him from a corpse into a dead person.  She was young, dark hair.  Dark lipstick that helped hide the blueness of her lips.  Her clothes were dark as well, a black skirt and black jacket, but her shirt was white.  Nothing too revealing, just the average clothes of an average teenage kid with slight authority issues.  Lassiter only let himself dwell upon this fact for half a second before he turned his mind to the more serious ramifications.  Three deaths, all taking place at night, all victims dark haired and young, all dying in a similar manner, as though they had decided to go to sleep and had the oxygen sucked right out of them.  The words ‘serial killer’ crossed his mind and he held back a shudder.

O’Hara was having a tougher time separating the girl from the corpse.  She wasn’t even completely sure she wanted that ability that Lassiter held such pride in.  What was the point of being one of the good guys if you forgot why you did it in the first place?  But she was still professional, holding her displeasure for all to see but not acting hysterically upon it.  She let her eyes slide away from the girl, over the trampled ground and the empty bottle someone was already sliding into an evidence bag.  And then she frowned, leaning in closer for a better look.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” one of the photographers asked, seeing where she was looking.  The area was roped off so that none of the people trampling over the scene could disrupt the sand.  Lassiter joined her for a moment before turning away again, directing the various teams and simply taking in the crime scene.  O’Hara stood a moment longer.  This was new.  The killer had left a message.  Dug into the sand, barely legible but still readable were six words.

The Sun shall set Them Free

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shawn Spencer, not so fake psychic, sat back in his chair and watched Gus at his computer.  Discretely, he folded a piece of paper under the shelter of his own desk, then waited…waited…and launch!  The airplane swooped towards the bent head of his friend, swerved in the sudden draft of an opening door, and missed by a good three feet, crashing into the window at just the perfect angle to get the nose caught in the binds.  Shawn wasn’t sure whether to count that as a miss or as a super awesome, I-really-meant-to-do-that success, because really, what were the odds of that happening?

“Don’t think I didn’t see that, Shawn!” Gus snapped in an annoyed voice without looking up from his research, but Shawn could tell the tone was on autopilot; Gus was too engrossed in his work to really work up an annoyance.

Shawn wasn’t paying attention to him anymore anyway, his attention turning to what had caused the sudden draft that had so disrupted his plane’s flight path.  A bit hesitantly, he turned not only his senses but his _senses_ towards the entrance to the office.

There was a young man (mid twenties, but you didn’t have to be a psychic to divine that) peering cautiously around the corner.  He looked petite in the way he held himself, shy and awkward, trying to disappear into the doorframe despite his hesitant wave in Shawn’s direction, presumably to get his attention.  Shawn sensed nothing malevolent, but then, he got the best readings off people he already knew.  As it was, Shawn couldn’t even really see the aura that he knew must surround the guy except, perhaps, for a brief flash of yellow, green, something murky and dark.  Grief.

“Welcome to Psych!” Shawn called enthusiastically, finally drawing Gus’s attention, “Where we put the spirit back into spirited, the ghoul into goulashes, the ESP into…er…ESPN…”

“Shawn!” Gus exclaimed, which was just as well because Shawn had no idea where he was going with that.  Gus gave the potential client a smile that was probably meant to comfort and keep said client from running out the door.  “Ignore him,” Gus continued, “Communing with spirits has made him a bit…eccentric.”  Mystery client didn’t relax, but he didn’t run either.  He clung nervously to the doorway frame. 

“Eccentric?  Gus?” Shawn exclaimed with exuberant wounded pride, “Like crazy aunt we never talk about, eccentric?  Or too rich to be called crazy eccentric?  Because I gotta tell you, I don’t have the figure for the first and I’m missing an essential ingredient for the second…” 

“You…” the guy finally managed to say, still looking a bit dubious, “You’re the guys in the paper, right?”

“That would be us,” Shawn agreed, and with an effort to put the kid at ease he motioned for the couch, saying, “What can we do for you?”  Potential client hesitantly sat, finally pulling off a back pack and pulling out a folder.

“My name is Lex, Lex Summers,” he said, clutching his folder like a lifeline, “I’m here about my boyfriend.”

“I see,” Gus said from beside Shawn, his smile a bit forced.  They got similar statements all the time; someone wanting to know if their significant other was cheating on them.  Occasionally it was something slightly more original, like ‘is he/she the one?  My soulmate?’.  Gus hated those cases, feeling them beneath them.  Shawn frowned as well, but for a different reason.  The swirl of darkness grew stronger at the mention of a boyfriend.  That and he had to bite his tongue to not make a Superman reference.  Really, it was killing him.

“So…” Gus prompted when Shawn managed to remain silent, “And what is it about your boyfriend?”  Lex looked even more nervous, probably sensing Gus’s less than warm demeanor, but he plowed on nonetheless.  Taking a deep breath, he managed to say, “I think he was murdered.”

Gus took a slight step back, not expecting that.  Lex offered his folder towards Shawn.  When the psychic made no move to take it, Gus gave him a look and took it for him, opening it to reveal a picture, a couple of newpaper clippings, and some wrinkled letters.

“Hey, I remember this!” Gus exclaimed, looking at the newspaper clippings, “That hot air balloon explosion a week or two back.”  The article proclaimed it a ‘tragic accident’ below the larger headline ‘Gas Kills High Youth’.  He remembers snickering over the title when it first came out.  Somehow, in this instance, it didn’t seem quite so funny.

“That’s my boyfriend, Justin Rivers,” Lex continued, “He…he told me to come to the beach that night.  That he had a surprise.  And then…”  Lex’s face suddenly darkened and Shawn got a sense of spikes and danger, “It was his father.  I know it.  He hated him.  Look at the letters.”  Gus pulled one out, holding it so Shawn could look too.  Shawn still made no move to touch them himself.  The writing in the letter was angry, with dark blotches where the ink was pressed too hard into the paper, and scribbled out bits that Gus suspected hid even worse language.

 _What the hell do you think you’re doing?  I raised you to be a good, Catholic boy, and now I hear you’re running off with that Summer (_ scribbled out bit _) boy?  What the (_ scribble _) hell is it you’re trying to do?  You want to burn in Hell, you want to make your mother cry and_ (lots of scribbling _)…well you just go ahead.  But you aren’t my son.  I’ll see you dead before I see you a (_ scribble _) damned (_ scribble _) fa-(_ blotch _)._

There was no signature but one wasn’t really needed. 

“Nice family,” Gus snorted, making a move to hand the letter over for Shawn’s perusal, but Shawn shied away quickly, avoiding the piece of paper as though it held the smallpox.  Gus gave him a look, before turning back to Lex.

“Did you take these to the police?” he asked, the first and obvious question.

“Of course,” Lex answered, drawing further in on himself, “They called it an accident.  The guy didn’t even want to look at it.  Said it was poetic justice.”  The last bit was mumbled so low the other two weren’t completely sure they had heard right.

“What?” Shawn managed to ask, his eyes narrowing slightly.  Lex looked up again, uncertainty in his eyes.  Apparently whatever he saw in Shawn and Gus’s looks reassured him slightly because a bit louder he repeated, “Poetic justice.  Going up in flames.”

“For being gay?” Gus managed to choke out, just to make sure they were all on the same page.  And because he couldn’t quite equate the place he spent half his workday as such a prejudiced atmosphere.  Lex merely nodded, giving him a ‘duh’ look.

“Who did you talk to?” Gus demanded, but before he could answer Shawn stepped in, hand to his forehead in his ‘divining’ stance.

“Let me guess,” Shawn said, his voice more bitter than otherworldly, “It begins with a ‘Law’ and ends in a ‘Rence’?

“Actually…I think it was something like Tubman…at least that’s what I called him…” Lex answered.  Shawn actually grinned briefly at that.

“Close enough,” Shawn agreed before holding a hand at least a foot over his own head, “Guy about yay high?  Hangs out with a guy holding a cross?  Scowl molded to his face?”

“Yeah, that’s him!  Er…them!” Lex answered.

“Truman and Lawrence?” Gus said, his frown deepening.  Shawn had only just gotten Gus to forget about the backroom incident he had walked in on by virtue of everything else that had happened around that time.  Gus wasn’t going to let this go.

“Listen, Luthor…”

“Lex!” Lex interrupted, sounding somewhat offended.

“I’ve heard it both ways,” Shawn answered, ignoring Lex’s frown as he hurried on, “You’ve got to report them.  We know the chief, we can…”

“No,” Lex interrupted again, “No police.  They won’t help.  Just…just you.  I can pay!” 

“Look,” Gus said, “Shawn is right, you can’t let them get away with…”

“No police!” Lex insisted, probably going for stubborn despite the fact he actually looked like he was about to cry.  Gus opened his mouth again to insist more firmly, but Shawn beat him to it, except without the insisting.

“Alright.  We’ll take your case.”  And despite his obviously reluctance, Shawn reached out to shake his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Sometime within the month or so that had passed since he had realized his fake flailing for the police had turned into something a bit less than fake, Shawn had learned to shy away from touch.  Being psychic was like opening doors in winter; dry air, lots of wool…prime ingredients for static shock.  You never knew when a casual brush against metal would suddenly bite back.  Lex Summers’ hand felt high voltage.

- _grief, anger, love, blackness deep as a starless night, crystals of white, bursts of blood rose red_ -

And Shawn pulled away.  No one seemed to have noticed anything odd in his handshake.  Lex was looking down and Gus was still frowning over Shawn’s failure to help him convince their client to seek police justice.  And Gus did have a point on this one; Truman’s offensive dismissal of both Lex’s evidence and his pain shouldn’t be ignored.  But Shawn also knew that Lex wouldn’t agree, not yet.  It was all too raw and he didn’t really trust Shawn and Gus. 

“So, are you both psychics?” Lex asked hesitantly, his eyes darting back and forth nervously between Shawn and Gus, “How does it work?”

“I’m the psychic,” Shawn answered, “Gus is my anchor during my forays into the spirit world, sucking me back when I go too far like a great, cosmic hoover.  I like to call him the psychic sucker.”  Gus’s face twitched as he snapped, “No you don’t, Shawn!” but he didn’t otherwise contradict his job description.  There was a short awkward silence.  When it became obvious that no one else was about to speak, Shawn clapped his hands together and said, “So…you think your dad murdered your boyfriend?”

“No,” Lex answered, frowning slightly, “I _know_ Justin’s dad killed him.”  And now there was definite lip quivering going on along with the flair of darkness. – _rage, pain…_ - 

“Right,” Shawn said, clapped Gus on the shoulder, and then grabbed the folder with the letters and newspaper clippings from his hands, “I’ll just go…divine.”  And he practically ran into the other room, leaving Gus to deal with the dark shock of grief swirling around Lex.

Gus found him later sitting slumped over, staring broodingly at the folder lying on the table in front of him.  It was closed. 

“What was that all about, Shawn?!” Gus exclaimed, his colors flickering madly with his mood, “You know I can’t deal with men crying!”  Shawn didn’t answer and Gus’s frown deepened, something like concern passing over his features.  Abruptly Shawn sat up and turned his head to look at him, his expression attempting a more familiar, jovial expression.

“So, did you get anything more out of Luthor?” he asked, and brooding mood or not, being able to say that brought a half smile to Shawn’s face.

“ _Lex_ ,” Gus answered, stressing their client’s real name, “sat and cried for half an hour while filling out our form before leaving.”  He was sounding stressed again, just remembering.  It wasn’t that Lex suddenly started bawling, really, in fact he held up quite determinedly but didn’t quite manage to hold back his tears.  He apologized afterwards, too.  Gus had managed to give him an awkward but manly pat to his shoulder and a box of Kleenex.

“We have forms?” Shawn asked, causing Gus’s eyes to narrow further and Shawn was quick to wave a hand towards the folder on the table.  “There’s something dark about those letters,” he said in hopes of pacifying Gus’s mood by showing he’d actually been working and not just hiding back there, “A bit like grief, actually.  Like he was already mourning his son.”

“You think he did it?” Gus asked eagerly, “Did you get a, you know, a vision?”

“Told you, they aren’t really visions,” Shawn answered, rubbing his head, “Well, sometimes, like memories…more like…”

“Wait, I’m going to get the book,” Gus said before dashing out of the room.  He was back a moment later carrying a three ring binder.  The cover depicted Shawn (or at least Shawn’s interpretation of himself which wasn’t quite the same thing) clutching his head in an agonized but still sexy (again, according to Shawn) pose as he looked into the beyond.  Gus looked on with awe in the background, a swirl of orange and yellow around his head.  Suffice it to say, the illustrations were supplied by Shawn.  In neat but stylish lettering, the title: A Study of Psychic Manifestation was written at the top, below which, in messier but still stylish (not to mention more colorful) writing was the message: Shawn’s Uber-awsome Instruction Manuel to his Brain!!! J.  Inside, typed and hand written pages were filed neatly behind dividers labeled with such titles as ‘case files’, ‘paranormal research’, ‘interviews’ and ‘Through Shawn’s Eye’ (the last which was the thickest and messiest portion as it mostly contained random drawings done by Shawn, only about a third of which actually had anything to do with his psychic abilities.).  Gus flipped straight to the ‘case files’ tab which started out typed but contained, in the back, several pages of hand written notes that he hadn’t gotten around to typing yet.

Shawn rolled his eyes at Gus’s part eager, part wary pose.  Making a book about Shawn wasn’t really good for him, at least in Gus’s opinion; it tended to bring out his ‘suffering movie star’ persona and make him more annoying than usual.  Gus put up with it, in part from the times when he did manage to get something both truthful and useful from Shawn and in part from feeling guilty for when he didn’t believe him.  No matter that no one could have blamed Gus for that.

“So,” Gus said, “What did you get from the letters?”

“Come on, Gus, you’re starting to sound like my dad!” Shawn cried, annoyance bordering on anger filling his voice.  Gus’s eyebrows rose.  Whatever was going on with the case must have freaked Shawn out big time; he usually just made jokes at this point to rile Gus up before giving in and letting him have some details.  Of course, the last few cases they had managed had been small cases, mostly a little old lady who stopped by at least once a week to have Shawn help her find something she’d misplaced or on occasion for help with some minor task (she tended to treat Shawn and Gus like favored young relatives or neighbors; she paid in homemade baked goods).  Aside from Mrs. Lewis, they had had two missing dogs, a lost wedding ring, and six cheating boyfriend types of cases.  Nothing close to murder.

“You said the dad was already mourning?” Gus said, not giving into the glare and ignoring the mumbled words that made no sense at all, something about counting bats.  Finally Shawn slumped back in his seat, his posture defeated.

“Yeah,” he said, “I just got emotions, not like…it wasn’t his thoughts or anything.  I didn’t see murder.  Just…a dad who was disappointed in his son.”  Gus wrote carefully, recognizing Shawn’s parallel but not sure what to do about it.  “He was angry…upset…but I can tell that just from how he wrote.  Disjointed, pressing down too hard.”

“And what did you…” Gus began to ask when Shawn leapt up, something approaching relief on his face as he went for his phone.  It rang a few seconds before Shawn grabbed it.

“Lassie-face!” Shawn exclaimed, none of the stress he had shown earlier entering his voice, “What’ve you got?”  He listened for a few seconds in silence.  Gus didn’t have to be psychic to know that Lassiter was probably growling a bit over the name but Shawn’s grin didn’t waver.  After a listening for a bit, Shawn said, “Do my ears deceive me?  Lassie-face requires the aid of a paranormal expert!  Well no worries, Lassaroonie, we’ll…”  But he trailed off in the middle of his sentence, lowering his phone from his ear.

“He hang up on you?” Gus asked.

“Yep,” Shawn answered, grinning, “Oh, and he wants our help.”

“We already have a case,” Gus reminded him, “One we really should be bringing to the police…”

“All in good time!” Shawn answered, “All in good time.  But first…”  he grabbed the book from Gus’s hands, flipping to the tab on paranormal research, “What do you know about vampires?”


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The station had a busier feel to it than normal.  To Shawn, the air crackled with energy, tense and alert like a bowstring bent back to fire.  He wasn’t sure if this was his psychic senses or just general observation, the two often tended to overlap, but it certainly didn’t take a psychic to see something big was going on.  And considering the light, smug tone Lassiter had adopted on the phone (perhaps even teasing, except it was hard to think of Lassiter in that light) his new case probably had nothing to do with it. 

Normally, Shawn would be feeling indignant and begin to cast about for information, anything to get him on the _real_ case and away from what would doubtless seem like a joke.    Of course, normally, as in pre-psychic (or prysic as he liked to call it), he didn’t have to fear visits from dead people; he didn’t have to fear the emotions, the insidious darkness, the pain that was inherent in violent cases.  The new, abnormal, post-psychic (postic?) Shawn practically tip-toed towards Lassiter’s desk, avoiding touching anything.  And definitely no looking.  Because if he looked he might see, he might count the hats and put A and B together without even meaning to, and then he’d have to share and be pulled in, and he’d never, ever forget.  So no looking.

Gus, of course, had no such compunctions but he did have a healthier dose of self preservation as well as more common sense than Shawn.  He still thought they should be sticking to Lex Summer’s case of the exploding hot air balloon.  But as long as they were at the station, perhaps Gus could manage to bring it up later.

Lassiter and Jules were half sitting half standing, slouched with heads bent together over a spread of documents over his desk, talking together in low voices.  In spite of himself, Shawn found his eyes sliding towards the papers, catching a brief glimpse of a photo.  His brain took in black lips and a blue tinged face before he managed to tear his eyes away.

“So, Lassie!” he cried, loudly announcing his entrance, “What is this urgent paranormal case you need us on?”  Lassiter managed to keep from jumping and to turn his sweep of all their case notes under a folder into a natural motion as he spun around to face Shawn.  Jules did jump and emitted a squeaking noise before glaring, both at the psychic for startling her and at Lassiter for not keeping her in the loop about this apparent new case.

“Mr. Spencer, Guster,” Lassiter said formally, just as though he always greeted them as highly respected police consultants, “We need your expertise in dealing with a matter that has been brought to our attention.”  He began to herd them towards an empty office.  If it had been an interrogation room, Shawn might have thought the request held merit.  As it was, the barely concealed smirk along with the abnormally polite greeting told him whoever was waiting in that office was either unpleasant, slightly insane, or both.

The man waiting stood as they walked in, eyeing them carefully.  He didn’t look insane, or even particularly unpleasant, though perhaps a bit odd.  He was dressed in black, complete with a long black coat that went down to his ankles like a cloak despite the fact that it was not particularly cold.  The coat didn’t look very thick anyway, more serviceable in the billowy department than the warming one, and it looked like it had deep pockets. What stood out the most against the black were the silver crosses; one on a necklace, one engraved upon his belt buckle, and one each laced to his shoes.  His belt also had many loops as though it was meant to carry tools or something, but they were empty now.

Shawn’s eyes swept appreciatively over the clothes within the first second of seeing him (and he was totally putting ‘billowing cloak’ on his ‘things to buy’ list) though a bit apprehensively at the crosses (a bit too Witch-hunter Lawrence for his taste).  The face he took in within the next second was young, though he would guess a bit older than himself.  His hair was brown and spiky, his eyes a startling blue.  And he wore glasses, and surprisingly, considering the whole black clothes vibe thing going, not sunglasses but actual gold rimmed prescription specs.  Altogether, he looked an odd mix of biker, Goth, and librarian.  Shawn attempted to look past his training and get a feel of him with his psychic senses.  He got a sense of murky red and something that smelled of incense before a growing headache forced him to stop.  It was always harder getting a read on people he didn’t know (which was just as well, because it would get annoying fast if he was forced to read everyone he saw.  Between that and his automatic observation and memory, he’d probably quickly go insane). 

“Mr. Winters?  These are our paranormal experts, Spencer and Guster,” Lassiter announced, his voice polite but slightly smug and still tinged with amusement.   

“Charles de Winter,” the man corrected, tipping his head slightly in greeting, “Pleased to meet you.  It’s not often I meet people who understand the gravity of the situation.  Can you believe I was tossed out of the station in Waterford?

“You don’t say?” Lassiter said, still looking disturbingly pleased.  Jules looked confused, her expression wavering between being cross with Lassiter and being (in Shawn’s opinion) entirely too appreciative of Mr. de Winter.

“Yes,” Shawn said, “ Charlie…”

“Charles,” Gus and de Winter corrected at the same time, giving it an eerie surround sound effect.

“Charles,” Shawn corrected himself, “What exactly do you need us…experting…in the paragon-al.”  This time it was only Gus who corrected him, and that was half-hearted as they waited to hear what de Winter had to say.  Charles leaned in closer, in a conspiratorial manner, before saying in a low voice, “vampires.”

Shawn blinked, not so much because it was unexpected (which it was), but because he had unintentionally, either psychically or merely coincidentally, deduced the topic.  When he had told Gus, back in the office, that they were wanted for something to do with vampires he had been joking.  Lassiter probably wouldn’t be caught dead calling the psychic on the phone and requesting his vampiric knowledge.  All Lassie had said was that they needed help in his field of expertise, and even that seemed to grate at his nerves as it required admitting Shawn had a sort of expertise.  Lassiter managed it anyway, mostly by maintaining a condescending, teasing tone.

Teasing or not, Shawn wasn’t about to turn down a case that Lassiter himself had requested help in.  So instead of making a sarcastic response or attempting to bait Lassie into losing that laughing tone, he turned to Gus and said, “Do we have anything in the Book on vampires?”  Gus looked like he couldn’t decide between being excited or alarmed at the prospect, but he answered dutifully and with what Shawn considered to be entirely too knowledgeable for the safety of Gus’s reputation.

“Not per say,” he answered, “We mostly concentrated on spirits and mental abilities, but I did run across a few articles on demonic possessions.  Vampires are halfbreeds in a sense, giving life to human corpses but retaining memories and personality, to some extent.  They drink blood or energy from the living, have an aversion to sunlight, garlic, and holy relics.”  When he received nothing but incredulous stares from his friend, Gus went on, a bit defensively, to say, “What?  There have been documented cases throughout history.  It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, Shawn.”

And all teasing aside, Shawn had to admit that the last month or so had shaken his own skepticism a tad when it came to the abnormal.  Charles de Winter was looking at Gus with a gleam of approval.

“I’m a vampire hunter,” de Winter explained, “Kind of a family tradition.  You can forget garlic, by the way, an old wives tale, doesn’t work as a repellent, though I suppose it could be relevant.  Never seen a vampire eat it.  Crosses are good, sunlight is the best.  They aren’t too fond of silver either.”

“I thought that was werewolves?” Shawn asked, deciding to play along for now.  Besides, he was sure he could turn this around on Lassiter if he tried.  De Winter looked at him as though he were an idiot.

“Its good for a host of demons,” he answered, and then, slightly suspiciously, “What exactly is your expertise?”

“Spirits,” Shawn answered a bit abruptly and with far less flair than usual, feeling slightly sulky that insane but somewhat cool vampire hunter guy seemed to think _he_ was the one who was insane.

“Shawn is more the…investigator,” Gus added, his own tone smug, “I’m the researcher.”

“So…brains and brawn then?” de Winter asked, causing them both to frown, unsure if they should be insulted by that.

“Right,” Lassiter announced, “I’ll just leave you to your…vampires.  Murderers to catch.”  When Shawn refused to take the bait or wheedle more information out of him, he shrugged and left, dragging Juliet after him.

“Right,” Shawn said after watching them leave, “First things first, and this is very important…where did you get that coat?”

“What he means to say is, why do you need us?” Gus said, giving Shawn a look.

“Dude!” Shawn cried, “You would totally be like Wesley Snipes!  You know you want one!”

Charles de Winter, after staring at them dubiously for a moment, chose to ignore Shawn.  “I’ve been tracking a family,” he said, “I have reason to believe they’ve taken up here in Santa Barbara.  I need help finding the nest.”

“And by family, you mean…” Shawn prompted, giving up on the coats.  For the moment.

“A group of vampires I’ve been gathering information on.  A family unit.  I can take out one or two, but the nest…it has eluded me.”

“So…you went to the police for help to find…a vampire nest?” Shawn asked, just to clarify. 

“If we combine resources, I’m sure we can scope out where they are and I can take care of it before your city becomes a harbor to the undead.”  And as cool as that sentence sounded, it also sounded a bit like Gus’s ‘time to do actual work to solve the case’ statements.  Shawn turned to Gus and slapped him on the back.  “Well…right...why don’t you do research-y stuff and I’ll go do…brawn…that sounded better in my head.”

“I’m sure it did,” Gus muttered as Shawn, for the second time that day, skipped out on him.  Shawn sensed the change in Gus’s colors and walked quicker, knowing that he would still have to face him later but free for the moment.  Unfortunately, about the only place he could think of to go was back to bug Lassie and Jules, which would normally be fine but not when their desk was covered with information on…something.  A picture of a dead girl. 

Instead, he ducked into yet another empty room (and what was with all the empty rooms?  Considering the way the station was crawling that day, Shawn would have thought it impossible to find room to breathe, let alone a place to hide).  Then he turned around and saw it wasn’t so empty after all.  A youth was leaning slumped against the wall in a position that screamed teenage angst.

“Hey,” Shawn said when he saw him, “What are you doing here?”  The youth shrugged.  He was dressed in black with a skull t-shirt and his hair was black (most likely dyed considering Shawn noted his light eyebrows) and styled into something meant to look last minute but probably took an hour to achieve.  And he had eyebrow piercings.  Altogether, he looked more the sort who should be hanging out in a cell on his way to juvie, not chilling in some hidden room of the police station.

“Well, you don’t mind if I hide out in here a bit?” he asked.

“Whatever,” the boy answered.

“So…” Shawn said after a full minute past and neither had said anything.  He was beginning to think researching vampires would be more fun after all (and upon reviewing that statement in his head, he began to wonder how he had thought it wouldn’t be).  And surely if he went to bug Lassiter the detective would be responsible enough to hide the case from him.  If he wasn’t trying (for once) to see it then maybe he really wouldn’t.  Right.

“You’re the psychic, right?” the youth asked suddenly, startling Shawn.

“Yep, that’s me, Shawn Spencer, psychic detective,” Shawn answered, leaping upon the opening, “And who are you?”

“Nathan,” he answered, “But call me Nat.”

“Like the bug?” Shawn asked, and the boy shrugged.

“S’what my brother called me,” he answered, and then leaning up slightly from the wall he said, “So what can you divine about me?”  Shawn rolled his eyes, but couldn’t resist showing off a bit.

“You like black,” he said, starting with the obvious, “And…dude…make-up?  Really?”

“You could do with a bit of eyeliner yourself,” the boy answered with a smirk, “Cover up the crows feet.  And where I hang out, black is keen. Getting anything else?”  Feeling slightly wrong footed that he hadn’t even gotten a glare or denial over the make-up thing, Shawn actually made the effort to tune into the teen.

His aura was surprisingly bright; in Shawn’s experience most young people had a muddy kaleidoscope of colors that nicely reflected the horrors of puberty.  But this kid had very clean cut colors, mostly white, red, and blue.  And he felt…strongly.  Anger, fear, love, hate…

Shawn took a slight step back.

“Right…Andrew…”

“Nat!”

“Nat,” Shawn corrected himself when the door swung open again.  His senses wide open he began to feel sick at the maelstrom of petty darkness.  He turned and watched Truman and Lawrence enter, looking quite startled to see him standing there.  Great, his least favorite police officers.  Where was Lassie when you needed him?

“What are you doing here, psycho?” Truman demanded, towering over him threateningly while shoving a suspicious bottle back in his pocket.  Despite the malevolence rolling off them in waves, Shawn wasn’t too worried.  Even if they were stupid enough to do something to him (and did they really think he wouldn’t tell the chief if they did?), they weren’t stupid enough to do it in front of a witness.  He didn’t think.

“I’m just chatting here with my pal, Nat,” Shawn answered, “What are you doing here?  Sneaking off to drink on the job?  For shame!”  They stared at him as though he really were crazy, and Lawrence held up his cross as though to ward him off. 

“What do you know, Psycho?” Truman demanded, “And who are you talking about?” 

“Nat,” Shawn answered, gesturing, “Angst boy, likes black?  Standing right there?”  The officers stared at him blankly.  Shawn turned in confusion to look at the kid, who just shrugged his shoulders and smirked.  He turned back to see Truman still staring at him suspiciously. 

“Right…hold that thought.  I need to check something.”  Reluctantly, Shawn slowly backed away until he was standing next to Nat.  Shawn stuck out a hand.  It met the wall.  Right where it should have run into Nat.

_Darkness, anger, hatred, light, humor, red, blood, blue…_

He jerked his hand back.

“Is this a good time to mention I was murdered?” Nat asked, “Some psychic you are.  And man, if I were you I’d run.  These guys look tough.”

“Ah, crap,” Shawn said. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that he really was alone with Truman and Lawrence or the fact that he had just spent the last fifteen minutes talking to a ghost. Either way, he figured he was in big trouble.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

Shawn Spencer leaned casually back against the wall and considered the logistics of running away when trapped in a closed room with two psychotic cops standing between him and the door.  And he really, really wanted to run.

 

“What are you looking at, psycho?!” Lawrence cried, his tone tinged with hysteria as he held the cross up higher, his eyes darting around the room for invisible people.  Nat waved, despite the fact that even he was looking a bit nervous as tension filled the room.

 

“Dude, why are you nervous?” Shawn demanded in a hissed whisper, “They can’t touch you.”

 

“But they can touch you,” he answered back, suddenly looking a lot less the indifferent teen and more the scared child, “And…and…you’re the only one who can see us.  Who can change things.  They want to kill you.”

 

“They’re not going to kill me,” Shawn answered, “They aren’t that stupid.  We’re in the middle of a police station; they’d never get away with it.”

 

“Just…just stop!” Lawrence screamed, his voice shaky, “Stop it!”  The tension in the room grew sharper, giving Shawn a headache and making his stomach churn.

 

“Just ignore him, Rob,” Truman insisted, eyeing the psychic with an evil gleam to his eye, “The psycho’s just winding you up.”

 

“He’s evil, with his witchcraft ways,” Lawrence insisted, and Shawn couldn’t keep back the snort at the sheer irony of that statement.  _He_ was evil?  He wasn’t the one practically reeking of hatred and violence.  Both cops narrowed their eyes at Shawn’s apparent amusement.

 

“Something funny, psycho?” Truman demanded. 

 

“No, no, not at all,” Shawn answered, while moving slowly sideways.  Perhaps if he moved slowly enough they wouldn’t notice he was going towards the door.  “Look,” he continued, going for distraction in the best way he knew how, with lots of flailing and words, “I’ll just leave and you can carry on with your non-evil goodness.  I’ll even keep quiet about the bottle of…” And maybe he should have just kept quiet because suddenly the far wall was getting rather intimate with his head.  And back, but really it was the sudden agony in his head that got his attention.  Truman leaned over him, his hand fisted on his shirt and his aura blazing with fury.

 

“Hey, hey!” cried Shawn, “Come on!  I said I wouldn’t tell, it’s not my fault you can’t hide…”

 

“Shut up!” Truman growled.  His hold shifted slightly and one knuckle brushed against the bare skin of his throat.  The sudden barrage of information was unexpected as it was intense and left Shawn momentarily sagging into Truman’s hold.  Truman and Lawrence were on their last chance; if they were caught drinking on the job they’d probably get thrown out of the police force for good.  He even got a brief flash that the alcohol had not been so much bought as confiscated.  And Shawn had just told them he knew about it.  This was not good.  Not to mention the fact that being touched by Truman’s essence, as it were, left Shawn feeling in need of a good bath.  He had sensed darker, Truman may have been a slimy bastard but he wasn’t exactly a serial killer, but the potential to kill was there.  _Anger, frustration, hatred, rage, fear._

 

“Kick him in the nuts!” Nat suddenly shouted from the sidelines, urging Shawn on, “punch him out!”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Shawn demanded, “He’s huge!  Can’t you do anything useful?  Like shoot fire at them or something?”

 

“Who are you talking to?” Lawrence demanded, and the pressure pushing him into the wall increased slightly.  Huh, maybe he should refrain from talking to people they can’t see or hear in their presence.

 

“I’m a spirit, not a demon,” Nat answered, “What do you want me to do?  Walk through them?”

 

“If you think it would help!” Shawn snapped back.  Nat shrugged, and suddenly darted straight through Lawrence.  It was a bit odd to watch.  Lawrence looked startled and shuddered, his eyes widening slightly.

 

“What are you doing?” he screamed at Shawn, “Stop it, stop it!”

 

“Whoa, I’m not…” Shawn began when a sudden pain exploded across his face, making the world spin for a moment.

 

“Hey, Rob, calm down!” he heard Truman say, “We can’t mark…”

 

“He’s evil, he’s doing something!” Lawrence insisted, and as the world stopped ringing Shawn finally saw the unlikely scenario of Truman holding Lawrence back.

 

“Get up, get up!” Nat cried, hopping slightly with his distress, “Get up now!”  It was only then that Shawn noticed Truman wasn’t holding him up anymore and that he was sitting slumped slightly against the wall, holding his head.  Gathering his senses enough to realize what Nat was saying, he lurched to his feet, making a break for the door.  He had stumbled about a foot when a large weight tackled him to the floor.

 

“Aw man, Rob, what’d you do?” Truman demanded from his position of sitting on Shawn, “Now we’ve assaulted the chief’s pet psychic.  They’ll crucify us.”

 

“Not if we…get rid of him,” Lawrence answered.  Shawn felt the room growing colder.  They weren’t capable of murder, he told himself, he would have felt it if they were murderers.  Petty and prejudiced, yes, but even they had lines they wouldn’t cross.

 

“I thought you didn’t approve of that kind of thing,” Truman answered, his tone doubtful, but far less disapproving that Shawn would have liked.

 

“Real people,” Lawrence answered, “But he’s…he’s evil.”

 

“We teach him a lesson,” Truman decided, “Show him what’s coming if he rats us out.”

 

“Really?” Shawn managed to gasp from his position of being sat upon on the floor, “And you really think no one’s going to notice if you beat me up?”

 

“Shut up, Shawn, do you want them to kill you instead?” Nat demanded, looking decidedly distraught as he stared past Lawrence, careful not to touch him this time.  They didn’t need a repeat of the last time.

 

“Can’t you go…get help?”  Shawn demanded, forgetting he shouldn’t be talking to the ghost out loud.

 

“You think we need help?” Truman demanded angrily.

 

“I don’t think he’s talking to us,” Lawrence said, looking around nervously.

 

“How?” Nat asked, after it seemed Shawn’s question hadn’t called down more violence, “They can’t see me or hear me.  Even you couldn’t when I first came here.  You were trying too hard to not see us.”

 

“I don’t know, just...Lassie!” Shawn answered before a sudden pain in his gut stole his air away.

 

“Just shut up, psycho!” Lawrence growled, “You call for help again and we can do worse.”

 

“Right,” Shawn managed to gasp out, “Talking bad,” before a foot connected with his stomach again.  And he had always thought Truman was the one with the more violent tendencies.

 

“Rob, chill,” Truman called, sounding a bit alarmed at the way things were turning as he staggered up to confront his partner.  Now would be the perfect time for Shawn to escape.  If only he could get his body to stop writhing on the floor and agree to move.  He’d even settle for getting his lungs back in working order.

 

“Come on, Shawn!” Nat cried, still hopping slightly with impotent energy.  Finally, with a cry of frustration, he ran through the closed door.

 

“He won’t stay silent,” Lawrence was insisting, “You know him, a word a minute, he won’t shut up.  We won’t just be dismissed, we’ll be charged.  With assault.”

 

“You know who his father is?” Truman demanded, “Hell, you know he’s under Lassiter’s protection.  Not to mention the chief’s!  If we keep on like this it won’t be assault, it’ll be something big, like attempted murder.  And you know what they do to cops in prison?”

 

“We get rid of him,” Lawrence insisted, “No one will know, we can destroy the tapes before they even find the body.”

 

“We can’t…Rob…”  Truman stuttered.  This would be a good time for Shawn to get away.  Now.  Before their conversation went any further.  But before he could do more than roll to his knees, Truman was suddenly standing over him again, staring at him coldly.

 

“The way to get to this one, it’s through his friends,” Truman decided after a moment, “You hear that psycho?  If you breathe a word of who taught you this much needed lesson, we kill that black guy who follows you around.  And why stop there?  You lock us away, we got contacts.  Everyone you know will be toast.”

 

“Right,” Lawrence said, “And now for the lesson.”

 

tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

 

Carlton Lassiter, despite his best efforts, could not get Spencer out of his head.  It had seemed a good idea at the time, calling him in for the psychotic vampire hunter.  The purpose was twofold; the sheer entertainment of watching Spencer flounder and, more importantly, to keep him occupied and away from his investigation.  Because if there was one thing he had learned about Shawn, it was that no matter how ridiculous or off-putting the case was that he presented to the psychic, Shawn would take it.  Simply because it was Lassiter who gave it to him.  And Lassiter really didn’t want Spencer or Guster anywhere near a serial killer.

 

But now, his thoughts kept straying even as he was standing behind the glass to the interrogation room where O’Hara attempted to comfort a distraught relative to one of the deceased (Lassiter told himself he had left the room after his harsher interrogation techniques to give O’Hara a chance to play the ‘good cop’ role, and not because his partner had glared at him and more or less ordered him out). It had been too easy, getting rid of Spencer.  If nothing else, he should have dropped by already to banter more about the vampire hunter.  He should be showing off, claiming the ‘spirits’ had revealed something big about the case Lassiter had handed him as a joke.  Or he should be snooping around to get tidbits of what Lassiter and O’Hara were doing.  And no matter what, he certainly shouldn’t have been quiet this long.

 

Suddenly, wheedling new information out of the old grandmother didn’t seem so important.  They already had her statement.  And unless Lassiter’s instinct was completely gone, he was fairly certain she wasn’t a killer, or secretly harboring the person who killed her grandson.  A sudden feeling of foreboding cold filled him, causing him to shudder and break out in goose bumps.  He had to find Shawn.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 

Spencer wasn’t with Guster.  Lassiter found the pharmaceutical salesman edging uncomfortable away from the vampire nut job he had set them up with, a disgruntled look on his face, but no Spencer.

 

“No, I haven’t seen him,” Guster said, glaring towards the detective in an unfriendly manner, despite his relief at having an excuse to escape de Winter, “He left, again, for important psychic business.  Probably something to do with our real case.”

 

“Real case?” Lassiter asked, feeling slightly alarmed that they might be snooping around after the serial killer after all.

 

“Yes, as in a real client, who your homophobic jerk of a cop scared off when he came to report a real murder.”  Guster’s tone was part condescending, part smug and Lassiter was caught between demanding to know more and gritting his teeth (both about the supposed murder and the implications towards the SBPD that sounded important).  He settled on making a note in his head to follow up on that and continued his search for the wayward psychic, dismissing Guster with something about being busy.

 

Spencer wasn’t at Lassiter’s desk either, (which would have been annoying, but at least he’d have been found), or the chief’s desk, or hanging out with the officers on duty or in the break room.  Neither had the officers he bumped into in the hallway seen him, but he really hadn’t expected that.  Lawrence and Truman weren’t particularly friendly towards the detective.

 

Finally, in exasperation, Lassiter started throwing open doors to some of the offices.  He found Spencer in the third room.

 

“Spencer!” he exclaimed, “What are you doing hiding…what the hell happened to your face?”

 

Spencer was sitting on the floor against the wall, his arms wrapped around himself in a tight self hug and the beginnings of a bruise blossoming across his cheek.  He stared back at Lassiter with an odd expression the detective couldn’t quite place.  After a moment of looking at Lassiter, then at something to his side, he leaned his head back and grinned.  It wasn’t his happy-because-I’m-brilliant grin or his I’m-feeling-playful-like-a-puppy-on-speed grin.  It was more bitter, like when he gave his big reveal for Drimmer.  Not that Lassiter had a habit of categorizing Spencer’s facial expressions.

 

“Will you stop hovering?” Shawn suddenly snapped, his eyes still a foot to Lassiter’s right, “They didn’t kill me.  Tubby called off the attack dog.”

 

“Spencer?” Lassiter asked, beginning to wonder if there was a concussion involved.  Spencer sighed, his eyes sliding back to land on the detective.

 

“I’m fine.  I got into a disagreement with someone but we made up.”

 

“Who?” Lassiter demanded, his eyes raking over Spencer’s body as he tried to determine if he was hurt worse under his clothing.  When Shawn didn’t answer the question, Lassiter’s eyes narrowed in consideration as the cop went through a mental list of people in the station who had shown animosity towards the self proclaimed psychic in the past.  Almost immediately he remembered the cops he had run into in that very hallway.  In hindsight, they had acted a bit shifty, in a hurry to get away.  “Truman and Lawrence.”  Shawn’s eyes actually widened tellingly in his surprise before he hung his head slightly.

 

“Yes, Truman and Lawrence.”  He lifted his head and looked Lassiter directly in the eyes again.  “They threatened Gus.  I don’t think…I mean, their colors said they were lying, but…they said they’d get someone to kill him.”

 

“Right,” Lassiter answered, his thoughts churning between anger, concern, and that bitter fury of his world view swirling out of whack.  Cops, in his book, were supposed to be the good guys.  He took a hesitant step towards Spencer then, concern growing that he was hurt worse than he looked.

 

“Go,” Shawn said with a wave of his hand, “I’m fine.  Go do your cop thing.  I’ll just…sit here a moment.”  And then, completely at random and doing nothing to aid his case, “Shut up Newt.”  And then, “I’ve heard it both ways.”  And then, when Lassiter still hovered between going to Shawn and going after the criminals Shawn exclaimed, “Go!  They’re probably out of the building by now!”  And realizing Shawn might be right, he finally fell into action.  Immediately feeling more comfortable in this familiar, professional role, he stormed out of the room, shouting out orders.  Guster and the nutcase appeared shortly and he waved them towards Shawn while he made his own way towards apprehending the two criminals (he refused to think of them as police officers anymore; they waved that right when they decided to assault a civilian).  The station was soon practically in lock down as officers scurried out of his way to do their job.

 

An hour later, Lassiter’s mood had in no way improved.  Truman and Lawrence had evaded capture, apparently having walked out and driven away only five minutes before Lassiter had initiated his search.  And the chief was being stubborn about his using ‘unnecessary man power’ for what had turned out to be a relatively minor assault.  The medical assessment that Shawn had had forced upon him revealed nothing more than a couple more bruises.  Painful but not exactly life threatening.

 

“I understand, chief,” Shawn declared magnanimously, managing to look noble and wounded in that way that had most of the woman staff ready to smother him in motherly concern and quite a few of the men as well; Lassiter had yet to figure out if Shawn just brought out parental concern in people by perpetually acting like a five year old, or if it was more like he had been adopted as the station’s pet psychic.  Either way it was slightly nauseating to watch Shawn play them and he refused to be taken in. Shawn was a manipulative, impulsive man-child and if Lassiter felt protective of him at all it was probably because Shawn was an almost, sort of friend who had a brilliant mind for detective work (he had to admit it, inside his own head even if he’d never say it out loud) coupled with the survival instinct of a lemming.

 

The chief did not look happy; in fact she looked downright pissed at her own verdict, but she was professional enough not to let personal feelings interfere with her job.  O’Hara looked downright scary, her attitude bordering on insubordinate.  Guster was quietly fuming.  He had given his own statement earlier, bringing up everything Shawn hadn’t thought to mention, like an earlier incident when the two had threatened him.

 

“Come on,” Shawn said from his position on the couch.  He was still sitting slightly hunched over and he had ice for his face which he now brandished about as he talked, or occasionally to touch against people’s backs when they weren’t paying attention.  “That was, like, months ago.  I don’t think they need to hear…”

 

“Go on,” the chief interrupted him, looking slightly harassed in the way the duo alternately barraged her with information and dragged their heels at revealing anything at all.

 

“And,” Guster proclaimed, “they are biased homophobes.”  Everyone stared at him.  Shawn put his head in his hands, shaking it slightly as he smothered a deranged giggle.

 

“What?” Guster demanded, his stance still that of the wounded righteous as he revealed the sins of the accused, “They were cruel and prejudiced and…stop it, Shawn!”

 

“It wasn’t us,” Shawn managed to say through the muffle of his own arm, “We have a new client.”  Then Guster understood the looks he was getting and his face took on a red-ish tint turning it darker.  “Well, would it matter if it was us?” he demanded, glaring towards them now, as if he expected them to turn on him.  The chief’s eyes narrowed. 

 

“No, of course not,” O’Hara was quick to say, though she actually looked slightly disappointed.  Lassiter suddenly found himself inexplicably wanting to giggle and quickly turned it into a rough cough and a frown.  There was a long moment of tension filled silence and the chief took a deep breath, readying herself to speak.  At that moment, Lassiter’s phone rang.

 

“Hello? Detective Lassiter here,” he barked into the phone.  There was a brief silence as the person on the other end had their say and then, “What?!...Don’t disturb anything, I’ll be right on it.”  And he closed his phone.  Then he finally looked up and noticed everyone’s expectant gaze, but he hesitated to address the others, his eyes involuntarily sliding towards Shawn and Guster.

 

“Well?” Shawn said, “Was that about the psycho cops?  And why did I get an image of fire?”  Lassiter hesitated a moment longer finally saying, “It’s not...it’s about the other case.  I really don’t think we should be discussing…”

 

“Oh my God, did they find another body?” O’Hara exclaimed, obviously not taking the hint that they weren’t to discuss the case in front of Spencer or Guster. 

 

“No,” Lassiter answered, finally giving in, “It’s about the autopsy.”

“That’s already done?” O’Hara asked, “And it wasn’t asphyxiation like we thought?  What?”

 

“I don’t know.  They didn’t get to finish.  The body…the body exploded.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“And you’re sure it wasn’t an explosive?”  Shawn listened to Lassiter and the experts talk from his position out of the way, in a corner.  He didn’t want to be here.  For once, he had been behaving and minding his own business, and he still wound up finagled onto the case.

“There’s no residue,” the bomb expert explained, waving a paper of lab notes about, “But the the fire was a hot one.  As near as we can tell, something ignited when the scalpel cut into her chest.”  More pictures were being displayed like a morbid ‘before and after’ sketch.  The before was gruesome enough; despite the unblemished body it was still the body of a corpse.  The after pictures had had Gus escaping the room the moment they were put up.  The torso was…unrecognizable.  Oddly enough, Shawn found that easier to look at than the first pictures, maybe simply because it was less recognizable as a body.  And then there was the guy who had been doing the cutting.  Thank goodness no one felt the need to parade his ‘after’ pictures; they already knew exactly what had caused his severe burns.  He was lucky to still be alive, and that verdict was still sketchy.  Shawn preferred not to think about it.  He had become an expert over the years in deflecting his own mind; the way his memory ran he had had to.

“So, what causes are we looking at here?” he asked dramatically in that tone that had often been taken for irreverence towards the victims, “Spontaneous combustion?  Pyrokinetic killers?  Really bad gas?”  The expert looked at him dubiously, as though unsure whether the questions were in earnest.  Jules looked slightly appalled.  Lassiter merely rolled his eyes and nodded towards the other man to answer the only sane part of that question.  “What do you think caused this?”

“Honestly?  It’s hard to say.  We might narrow it down by assessing the temperature of the burn, which is obviously high to have burned in quite this…manner.  You can see how the torso was quickly consumed, but the extremities are untouched…If I had to guess, right this moment, I’d say some kind of chemical or gas was inserted in the body and ignited later by the scalpel, perhaps by a spark…”

“Right,” Lassiter declared, studying the pictures with the detached eye of a professional, “But there’s no mark on the body.  How’d this substance get inside?”

“I couldn’t say,” the man answered, “I’m just trained in burns and bombs.”

“There’s cut marks, on the arms,” Jules pointed out, motioning towards some of the other pictures laid out around them, “Do you think…something could have been inserted into the blood stream, left to buildup, I don’t know, in the heart…then it gets cut open…”

“If that’s true, the killer changed their tactic,” Lassiter commented, “None of the other victims had this reaction.”

“So we’re definitely ruling out bad gas?” Shawn asked from the sidelines.  This time no one even reacted.  Shawn wasn’t even sure himself why he felt compelled to make these remarks; there was certainly nothing about this case that he found amusing.  Suddenly, a head stuck itself through the closed door, causing Shawn to jump.

“Are they done yet?” Nat asked, his face still a pale.  He had run out around the same time Gus had escaped.  Apparently, despite his projected persona of utter indifference to the world, the dead boy couldn’t handle looking at exploded corpses either.  Rather than answering out loud and once again being scrutinized by everyone in the room, Shawn shook his head minutely.  Nat glanced at the still hanging photos, blanched, and pulled his head back through the door.  Shawn stared at the empty spot for a moment, then glanced at where the detectives were still discussing the newest mystery.  Finally he leaned back from where he had been hunched in a corner, stretching.

“Well…I think you have this in hand.  I should go check on Gus.”

“Wait,” Lassiter said, “Just…didyoudivineanything?”

“What?” Shawn asked, his eyes wide though he bit the inside of his cheeks to hold in his grin.  Lassiter growled slightly that he was making him ask it out.

“Did you divine anything?” he managed to spit out, his tone aggressive.  His colors flared to match his embarrassed but earnest inquiry.  Shawn almost stumbled when he suddenly realized there was nothing of a lie about his colors; Lassiter wasn’t just asking if Shawn knew something, he really wanted to know if Shawn had divined something.  And he believed enough in the possibility that his colors reflected in ulterior design behind his words.  Shawn found himself grinning in spite of himself.  It was only when the detective grounded out, “Well?” that he realized he hadn’t answered the question yet.

“Sorry, Lassie,” he answered, “It looks like the spirits are squeamish about burned bodies.  But I’ll try consulting them in the hallway.”  And he slipped out of the room.

Gus was nowhere to be seen but Nat was still there, still looking pale.  Of course, he was a ghost so one would think being pale went with the job description.  Shawn glanced around the empty hallway, then moved them a little ways from the door just to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard.

“Well?” he asked at last, looking at Nat expectantly.

“Well what?” the boy answered, leaning against the wall and doing his best to look unconcerned and nonchalant, despite the whiteness to his face.  Shawn resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Why are you here?  To help with the case, right?  Bring your murderer to justice or something like that?  So…details?”  Nat shifted on his feet now, looking a bit uncomfortable.

“I don’t…it doesn’t really work like that,” he answered.

“Like what?  Is there some rule against telling me the name of your killer?” Shawn asked, growing annoyed.  Seriously, what was the point of seeing ghosts if they couldn’t talk about the important parts?

“No, I don’t think so,” Nat answered, “There aren’t really rules…I don’t know.  I was alive, and now I’m dead, and now I’m here.”

“Then why you?” Shawn asked, “Why not one of the other victims, or all of them for that matter?”  Then he shut his mouth and shuddered, hoping he wasn’t asking for trouble.  Seeing one spirit hanging around was bad enough; he so did not need more clamoring around.

“I don’t know,” Nat growled, beginning to sound annoyed, though at least the color was returning to his face in his passion.  Shawn eyed the boy suspiciously.

“You’re not going to suddenly pull a Bruce Willis on me and tell me I’m really dead, are you?  Or am I supposed to be helping you cross over or something.”

“If anyone were Bruce Willis, it’d be me.  I’m the one who’s dead.  You’d be more like that kid.  And I don’t think I need help, thank you.  I know I’m dead.  I just…you needed help and I came.  If you catch my killer, great.  I think…I think my brother needs that.”

“The brother who called you Nat?” Shawn asked, before once again biting his tongue to hold back all Alien references. 

“Yeah,” the boy answered, his eyes suddenly deep and his colors sharp.  Shawn felt the beginnings of a headache. 

“Well,” he said, “Can you tell me anything at all?”  Nat leaned back, his eyes looking away somewhere that Shawn couldn’t see.

“I can tell you that it didn’t hurt.  I was somewhere fun, out.  I don’t remember…I think I went to sleep and I died.  And there wasn’t a sudden light or anything I was just…their memory helps me to be here, I think.  Like an anchor.  Maybe that’s why I’m here; maybe that’s why all ghosts stay.  Because the memories hold them.  Our memories, our family’s, our friends’.  I don’t think I was stabbed or drowned or anything.  I almost drowned once, you know, and that…it hurt.  This didn’t.  I just went to sleep.”

Shawn listened intently, wondering if there was some profound wisdom or knowledge in his words and wondering why it was to Shawn, of all people, that whatever powers that be exist had decided to share it with.  It should be Gus listening to this, pen in hand, interviewing the dead and sharing with the world.  Not Shawn.  Shawn who would listen and probably make jokes and if he shared it at all he’d mangle the words or cheapen it somehow.  It shouldn’t be him.  But it was, so Shawn did the best he could and just listened.  When it became apparent that Nat had nothing more to say, Shawn turned to the parts he could understand; he tried to do his job. 

“And you don’t know where you were?  Who you were with?  No idea?” he asked. 

“Who are you talking to?”

Shawn jumped and turned his head as he belatedly realized he wasn’t alone.  Jules stood staring at him, concern radiating from her in nauseating waves.  Lassie stood behind her.  Not in the mood for antics Shawn deflected by telling the truth.

“Nat, Jules and Lassie,” he said with a nod of his head, as though introducing them to each other, “Jules and Lassie, meet Nat.  Or Nathan.”  Jules sighed, saying, “Shawn,” in that tone that implied she wasn’t in the mood to play.  To Shawn’s surprise, Lassiter actually seemed to be considering his words.

“Nathan Farmer?” he asked, sounding part suspicious, part curious.  Shawn looked automatically to Nat who merely nodded his head.

“Apparently,” he answered.  Lassiter sighed, rubbing his head in a tired gesture.

“And why are you talking to Nathan Farmer?  Did he tell you anything about his killer?”  Shawn stared at Lassiter in confusion at his strange cooperation.  Surely Lassiter didn’t suddenly believe that Shawn really talked to spirits.  But he was waiting for a real answer; perhaps believing in Shawn’s ability to solve cases even if he didn’t believe in the method.

“Sorry,” Shawn had to answer, “He doesn’t remember.  Apparently Nat went to sleep somewhere fun and woke up dead.”  Lassiter considered this.

“So your saying he went peacefully?” he asked, “Do you think he was drugged.”  Still feeling weirded out by the earnestness to the conversation, Shawn nevertheless turned to Nat.

“Dude, I told you, I don’t remember,” he insisted, “If I knew who the bastard was, I’d have told you first thing.  None of us saw anything.”

“None of you?” Shawn asked, “You can talk to the others?”  Nat sighed, looking utterly annoyed at having to explain what he obviously found to be dull and obvious.

“We’re connected, sort of.  I can’t explain it.  I think you’d have to be dead to understand.”

“Shawn?” Jules asked, “What’s he saying?”  Shawn glanced at her, then towards Lassiter, half expecting to see the detective rolling his eyes.  To his surprise the other man was simply looking at him, waiting for him to answer the question.  Feeling a bit disconcerted, he answered.

“He doesn’t remember.  He says none of them remember.”

“Right,” Lassiter answered, “Well, let us know if the…spirits…tell you anything new.”  He had completely managed to keep his scorn out of his voice when he referred to the spirits, though he did choke a bit in the effort.  Then he continued his walk down the hallway.

“You are ok?” Jules asked, hesitating to follow and concern still radiating through her colors. 

“Sure, just fine,” Shawn answered, smiling brightly when Gus finally reappeared, to drag him away.

“Come on, Shawn,” he muttered, “You’re the one who insisted we do this thing.”

“Right, like you really protested,” Shawn answered, letting the stress of the case and the spirits slide away as they walked.  Gus just shook his head, mumbling under his breath.

“Vampire hunting.  Really.  If I get bitten I am so coming back to suck you dry.”  Shawn graciously refrained from the obvious response.  Nat didn’t, but Shawn managed to turn his snort into a cough.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
  
“Why are we doing this, Shawn?”  
  
“To rid the world of the Sing-Say vampires?” He wasn’t really listening as Gus complained; he was busy admiring his new swishy black coat of coolness.  
  
“It’s Sanxay, Shawn. I should know; after you left Mr. de Winter told me. In detail. For half an hour.”  
  
“Well sorry if I was too busy with Tubman and Witchhunter.” Then Shawn winced. Gus had been oozing with a sickening amount of guilt, worry, and apprehension ever since the office incident. And Shawn just had to bring it up again.  
  
“Stop calling him Witchhunter, Shawn. It sounds dumb.” Despite his words, Shawn could feel the flicker of emotions tune up a notch.  
  
“Dude!” he exclaimed, “Stop that! It wasn’t your fault!”  
  
“I know it wasn’t my fault,” Gus answered, still glaring.  
  
“You know, but you don’t know, and your emotional turmoil is giving me a headache.”  
  
“That doesn’t even make sense! And I can’t help what I feel, Shawn.”  
  
“Never mind that now! It’s almost sundown. Quick, where do you keep the holy water in case of supernatural emergency?” When in doubt, distraction usually helped.  
  
“I don’t keep…” Gus started to say before giving up at Shawn’s pointed look. “Spray bottle under the desk.”  
  
“Only one?” Shawn asked as he ducked under to retrieve it, “What will you be using?”  
  
“That’s mine, Shawn!” Gus answered snatching it from his hands before he could protest, “You don’t even believe in demons, remember?”  
  
“Come on, Gus! Don’t be a Grabby Abby. Share your stash! Do you want me to be eaten by the undead?” Gus mumbled something too low to hear but Shawn chose to interpret it as ‘of course not, Shawn, I’d be lost without you’. “Besides, look! I made you a crucifix! See?”  
  
“Are those…paperclips? You made a cross out of paperclips? That’s not…you didn’t even straighten them or glue them or anything!”  
  
“I know! Ingenious, isn’t it? Here, I have some string…”  
  
“Those are shoelaces, Shawn. Those are…are those…hey! Those are my shoelaces!”  
  
“Well I wasn’t going to use mine! My shoes would fall off. It’s not my fault you obsess over leaving extra clothes everywhere.”  
  
“I do not obsess! And give me…”  
  
“No!” Shawn darted away, holding the precious laces and paperclip creations protectively.  
  
“Shawn! Stop…look out!”  
  
“Ow! Ow ow ow.”  
  
“Am I interrupting something?”  
  
Shawn and Gus looked up; Shawn still sprawled on the floor tangled up with his traitorous bike. Charles de Winter stood in the doorway.  
  
Half an hour later, Shawn had his own holy water spray bottle, courtesy of their new slightly psychotic friend. They crept stealth-like in the shadows of the street, dancing around the pools of light (at least, Shawn danced; de Winter strode purposefully forward on a path that seemed to sidestep the lights without even trying and Gus walked). Gus and Shawn were a step or two behind de Winter, and so according to the general laws of talking as learned from various forms of media they could talk privately to each other. Shawn would have been more than happy to have secret discussions about de Winter or vampires. Unfortunately, Gus had other ideas.  
  
“I know what you’re doing, Shawn.”  
  
“Of course you do,” Shawn agreed, “vampire hunting.”  
  
“You’re avoiding the real cases. You can’t put off Lex Summers forever. And what about the killer?”  
  
“Dude, I’m really psychic now. We don’t have to work so hard anymore. And this is important! Even now the vampires…”  
  
“Right. So, psychic, if you don’t need to work anymore…who is the killer?”  
  
“Hard to say. My contact to the spirit world is a bit fickle. His input this evening was that I needed eyeliner to go with my coat.”  
  
“Is that why you were arguing with your mirror?”  
  
“No! I mean, yes, but that wasn’t…er…where’d Charlie go?”  
  
“Charles,” Gus corrected automatically, then frowned as he took in their surroundings. Their dark, creepy surroundings. This part of town looked old and abandoned, no lights and plenty of old buildings. It was quite easy, in this place, to imagine ghosts and vampires, or at the very least, gangs of murderous bandits. Then one of the shadows pulled away from a building and grabbed them. It would later be debated which one of them shrieked like a little girl, but it was definitely both of them that drenched their captor in holy water.  
  
“Hush!” a voice hissed. They finally stopped screaming long enough to recognize their captor.  
  
“Charlie!” Shawn cried, his hand over his heart, “Don’t do that!” Gus said nothing but attempted to appear cool and relaxed despite his earlier lapse into panic. Charles de Winter, despite looking rather damp, didn’t appear to annoyed.  
  
“Follow me,” was all he said, “And no noise.” And the shadow that was de Winter slid away again.  
  
“Dude! He is so cool!” Shawn whispered and followed.  
  
“He is creepy,” Gus said, but Shawn didn’t seem to have heard and Gus gave up and followed. He was so not going to be the one to get separated from the group and eaten.  
  
Shawn and Gus followed de Winter more closely. As the man pulled a wooden stake out of his belt, they began to feel the first real trickle of apprehension. Whether vampires were real or not, de Winter obviously believed they were. And spraying people with water might be annoying, but shoving a stake in their heart…not so innocent. Shawn began to suspect that Lassiter was wrong to dismiss this man as a harmless psycho. Of course, Shawn recalled, he hadn’t brought weapons into the station. He remembered the belt; the loops had been there to hold the stakes, but the stakes themselves were not.  
  
Real fear that had nothing to do with the spooky surroundings or their current mission began to grow in Shawn’s stomach.  
  
“Hey, McStabby,” Shawn hissed, running a bit to catch up to de Winter, “Don’t you think it’s a bit early to brandish the big guns? I mean, what if a…an innocent victim is there?”  
  
De Winter moved swiftly and the next thing Shawn knew he was being held against a wall, and some bruises from earlier that day were screaming their presence. “No talking,” de Winter hissed, “They have the ears of bats.”  
  
“Really? Well then, no problem, we can check their ears before we stab them.” De Winter stared at Shawn for a second, but he did finally let him go and start on again. Shawn staggered a bit back to his place by Gus. They followed again, a bit slower than before. From the corner of his mouth, Shawn said, “Called Lassie yet?”  
  
Gus, also trying to speak out of the side of his mouth, answered, “No signal.” They kept walking. Suddenly, Shawn stopped.  
  
“What?” Gus asked. There might have been some arm grabbing and squeezing as well, but he would admit to nothing.  
  
“Nat says there’s something…”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Ghost. And…something feels…odd. I think…”  
  
This time when they were grabbed from behind, a hand clamped over their mouths, they dropped the spray bottles.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Shawn reacted in the only reasonable way a person can act when held captive with a hand covering their mouth; he licked it.  It was pure instinct, and had he thought about it a second he might have noticed the soft, cool feel of cloth over his mouth.  As it was, all his attempt did was leave him with the taste of leather on his tongue.  His captor was wearing gloves.  Gus’s wasn’t.

Gus twisted free using a move he learned on Oprah during a self defense segment (and Shawn had scoffed).  He took about half a second to take in the situation, and decided on the more prudent if less manly rout of running.  He did it by bowling through the person holding Shawn, breaking him free before taking off.  Unfortunately, Shawn was just as startled by the move as his captor had been, and more hands grabbed him before he could do more than stagger a couple of steps.

“Knee him!  Kick him!  Bite his fingers off!”  Shawn wanted to inform Nat that he definitely was not helping, but that would require the ability to speak.  Despite all the noise they had already made, his new captor still felt it necessary to hold a hand over Shawn’s mouth.

There were about five of them, two bulky musclemen, two of Shawn’s build, and one woman.  Three of the five looked fairly gothic dressed in black though the other two had on perfectly normal clothes.  They were arguing, softly, practically growling at each other over Gus’s escape.  All in all, Shawn’s first thought was ‘murderous thugs’, not ‘nest of vampires’.  Suddenly, a canister skittered into the midst of them, hissing.  The group stared at it, for a second, and then scattered.  One of the leather musclemen still had Shawn, dragging him away with him.  A few seconds later, Shawn was grateful for that.  The canister behind them exploded.

The ‘boom’ hit Shawn’s ears with all the solidity of a baseball bat, leaving him reeling.  He was let go, the man who had been dragging him clutching his own ears tightly.  Shawn had the presence of mind to scuttle backwards like a crab, away from the others, while silence rang in his ears like a gong.  One voice broke through it, shouting excitedly for him to run as Nat jumped up and down, impotent to really help.

Charles de Winter slid onto the scene with the natural grace of a predator.  The five thugs recovered quickly, turning on him to attack.  They were fast, silent, and obviously well versed in street fights.  They’d have fit in well in a kung fu movie.  But Charles de Winter was not too green himself.  And it very quickly became apparent that he was, in fact winning.

Shawn and Nat participated by cheering him on.  Nat had forgotten, by then, to remind Shawn about running.  Shawn almost forgot where he was himself, that this wasn’t some sort of bizarre show set up to entertain.  Until Charlie twisted one of the smaller thugs about with the same ease he had earlier thrown Shawn into a wall.  Three others were already crumbled about on the floor, some twitching but not getting up.  This last person was being held by his neck by de Winter.  As though conjured by magic, his stake was in his hand.

“Whoa, dude!” Shawn cried, jumping forward at last to intervene, “Wait, McStabby Pants, I thought we talked about this!”

“He’s a vampire,” de Winter answered.  Shawn stared at the kid.  And he was little more than a kid; up close Shawn could see he was only a little older than Nat, in his early twenties at most.  He didn’t look particularly vampire-y; he wasn’t even one of the ones wearing black.  And the terror in his eyes held none of the otherworldly coolness that Shawn had come to expect in his movies.

“Okay,” Shawn humored Charles, “Right, vampire.  So, look, you’ve beaten them!  You don’t need to…”

“There are two ways to permanently take down a vampire,” de Winter said, ignoring Shawn’s attempts to pull the stake arm away from where it was poised, ready to stab the kid’s chest, “A good sharp stake or the power of the sun.  And the vamps are a little too active this time of night to try the sun.”

“Not to mention a little too dark,” Shawn pointed out.  Then, when de Winter shifted his arm to drive the stake through, he cried, “Whoa!  Seriously!  You can’t just go around stabbing people!”

“I’m not a vampire,” his captive managed to squeak out through his obvious fear, “I’m not!  I’m…I’m…Tell him, Psychic, I don’t harm no one!”

“Behind you!” Nat shouted.  Shawn spun around in response and threw himself to the right, the last part from instinct.  De Winter, not having any psychic abilities, barely reacted in time to avoid a long, sharp looking blade.  He let go of the kid, swinging his stake around in a vicious thrust but caught only cloth.  This time, Shawn took Nat’s advice, and ran.

The former captive ran too, suddenly grabbing Shawn’s arm with a hiss of ‘this way’ as he ducked into a dark doorway Shawn hadn’t noticed before.  Shawn followed without thinking, fear and excitement thrumming through his veins and making the whole world feel slightly unreal but sharp at the same time. 

They continued running for a ways, through twists and turns in a maze of buildings and alleys, until they finally stumbled to a halt just on the edge of a pool of light.  Shawn looked around, disoriented, as the kid walked up to a huge muscle guy standing in front of a door.  It looked like a bouncer standing in front of a club, though not a club Shawn would usually frequent.  The bouncer was eying Shawn with obvious misgiving.

“It’s cool,” the kid told him, “He’s a psychic.”

“How did you…” Shawn started to say but trailed off as the kid gave him a look of contempt to rival Nat’s in the bratty teenager department.

“I can read,” was all he said, as though that should be obvious.

“Oh…right,” Shawn answered.  That made sense.

“Hey, I know this place!” Nat said suddenly, “I mean, I never hanged out here or anything, the bouncer never let me in, but I knew some people who did.  It’s one of those Goth themed places, you know, vampires and werewolves and witches.”  He sounded excited about it, sticking his tongue out at the bouncer as he walked invisibly by before turning back to where Shawn still stood, calling, “Well?  Come on!”  Shawn walked forward nervously, but the bouncer had apparently taken the kid at his word and let them pass.  He didn’t even ask for money like Shawn half expected.

“Come on,” the kid said, “the Hunter won’t follow us in here.”  And though Shawn didn’t really have any reason to run from de Winter, and every reason to avoid following the person who had participated earlier in the grabbing and manhandling, he still found himself going inside.  Nat was practically bouncing, not the least bit apprehensive, but this whole night had taken on a bit of a surreal feel for Shawn.  He had set out like a kid playing dress up for Halloween but was no longer quite so certain the monsters were all fake.

“Are you a vampire?” Shawn suddenly blurted out, wishing Gus were here so that Shawn could take the more comfortable side of convincing his friend vampires were not real.

“I thought you were a psychic,” the kid answered, rolling his eyes, “Can’t you read my aura or something?”  A bit afraid, Shawn tried it.  He got a faint echo of an aura, what he usually got from strangers when he bothered to try.  The colors were a bit muddy, the usual youthful angst mixed with fear and excitement.

“You…aren’t dead,” Shawn said, after staring at him a moment, “And probably not a serial killer.”

“And you think vampires are dead serial killers?” he demanded with a laugh as he led him past a large door.  Through the door Shawn saw a definite club atmosphere, though obviously one with a Gothic theme.  They didn’t go that way, though, walking down some stairs and through a maze of hallways.  It wasn’t completely empty here, either.  The kid got friendly nods of greeting.  Shawn got amused glances.  No one stopped them, though.

He stopped, finally, and led him into a room.  The moment Shawn stepped into it, the low murmur of voices ceased. 

Shawn’s first impression was that it was, indeed, a den of vampires.  This opinion, however, was probably warped by his paranoia from the evening and so he did his best to convince himself it wasn’t.  It was simply a dimly lit room containing a clash of Victorian style furniture with riotous colors hanging on the wall and draped upon the floor.  The colors were in complete contrast to the ensemble of people lounging about the room as they generally favored black or white, some obtaining a Gothic look complete with makeup and dyed hair while others merely looked formal as though for a fancy dress party.  Many of them had glasses with a red liquid in it.  Shawn was almost certain it probably wasn’t blood.  Probably.

After the people had given Shawn a cursory glance, most of them turned away again.  One man, however, stood from the chair where he had been lounging and strode forward.  He was one of the fancy dress people, in his case having borrowed his look from a previous century.  His white shirt had ruffles on it and over that was a black vest that, altogether, ought to have looked silly but actually managed to make him look rather elegant.  His hair wasn’t a Gothic black but a light brown though his face was on the pale side.  He looked first at Shawn’s new friend then at Shawn himself, his eyes dark and piercing.  Shawn read his aura almost involuntarily; it shone bright and sharp though still not with the fire of Nat’s.  He felt dangerous, but not evil.  The man kept his gaze on Shawn, but it was to the kid he spoke.

“Greg, what have I told you about bringing home strays?”

“Yeah, I know,” the kid said, “But listen!  He saved me from the Hunter!”  At that, talk ceased once more and all eyes were on them.  Shawn shifted uncomfortably.

“Hey,” he said, waving slightly, feeling uncharacteristically quiet.  He wished Gus were there.  If for no other reason than to have someone to bounce words off of.  He felt jittery without that outlet, as though he might blurt out something completely inappropriate and stupid at any minute.

“Besides,” the kid said, “It’s just the Psychic.”  As though that held some great importance.  Perhaps it did, because the interested and slightly creepy stares turned away and the soft murmur of voices rose once more.

“In that case,” the man said, his eyes still piercing, “Welcome Psychic.  I am Jean Sanxay.”  He bowed slightly.

Shawn nodded his head in return, smiling nervously, while wondering if he shouldn’t have taken his chances with the insane vampire hunter.  He really, really wished Gus was there.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“Let me get this straight.  You went vampire hunting with Charlie de Psycho…alone…at night…and now Spencer has been kidnapped by vampires?”

“Yes!” Gus shouted, waving his hands impatiently for Lassiter to get a move on it.  The detective rolled his eyes but couldn’t quite hide the gleam of worry.

“Alright then.  O’Hara!  Come on, we have a case!”

“A case?” Jules asked as she ran over, her eyes darting towards Gus in confusion, “Carlton, can’t this wait?  We’re kind of busy with…”

“Alright, not a case.  A situation.  Guster here thinks Shawn was kidnapped by vampires.”

“I am not insane,” Gus insisted, seeing the look Jules was giving him.  She threw her hands up in surrender.

“Alright, vampires.” And then, with more concern, “Shawn’s been kidnapped?”

“What part of ‘Shawn was kidnapped by vampires’ did you not understand?” Lassiter half growled, his shoulders tense.  The other two stared at him.

“Wait…did you just call him ‘Shawn’?” Jules asked, still sounding slightly confused.

“…no,” Lassiter answered, and when Gus started to contradict him he expanded, saying, “I was quoting Guster.” The other two continued to stare at him.  Lassiter finally turned away.  “Time to go,” he barked, “Guster, lead the way to Spencer.”  Gus and Jules let it go.

Despite his words, they still made Gus ride in the back of the car.  Lassiter drove in a tense silence while Guster prattled on, alternatively giving annoying backseat directions and bringing Jules up to speed.  Lassiter ignored the driving instructions but kept half an ear open for details that Guster might have let slip in his earlier panic over the situation.  Jules listened with much more patience and obvious concern.

“You couldn’t get a signal?” she said when Gus got to the point about de Winter’s increasingly psycho behavior.

“Yeah, I know,” Gus agreed, “Well, my phone didn’t.  Shawn didn’t try his.  Knowing him, he probably lost it again or something.  But anyway, this is where the vampires showed up!  Shawn sensed them or something, or someone did, Gnat…”

“Nathan Farmer,” Lassiter provided before clamping his lips shut again when the other two turned to look at him.

“The spirit he was talking to at the station?” Jules asked, surprised.

“Whatever,” Gus said, “Anyway, something told Shawn there was danger, but it was too late.  They grabbed us from behind.  I used my moves to get away and broke Shawn free too.  He was supposed to run!  I thought he got away…but he didn’t follow me.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,” Jules said sympathetically, “Right, Carlton?”  When Lassiter didn’t immediately say anything, she repeated herself more gruffly, elbowing him, “ _Right_ , Carlton?”

“Wha?!” he said, swerving slightly before glancing back to see Guster’s despondent features and then to the side to see O’Hara glaring impatiently.  “Sure, right.”

The car had no sooner arrived to the nearest approximation Gus could give of where he lost Shawn when Charles de Winter emerged from the shadows.

“You!” Gus cried, hopping out almost before the car stopped.  Almost, because even hyped up on adrenalin and fear, Gus knew how to follow proper vehicular safety.

“Good, you brought back up,” de Winter said, eying the two cops as they got out more slowly.

“Alright, Mr. de Winter,” Lassiter said in that condescending tone he generally reserved for criminals, “We know what sick, twisted games you’re up to.”

“We do?” Gus asked.  Of course Gus knew what was going on; vampires had infiltrated Santa Barbara and some had kidnapped Shawn.  But Gus didn’t think Lassiter actually believed in that scenario.

“Of course we do,” Jules agreed, but Gus could tell by her tone that she was bluffing. 

“Gang wars,” Lassiter said.  Gus still couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not.  Whatever response the detective was hoping for by throwing that out, it wasn’t the one he got.  Charles de Winter rolled his eyes slightly, his stance impatient.

“We haven’t got time for this,” he said, “I’ve tracked them down to the nest.  Your ‘paranormal expert’ infiltrated it while I was busy fighting.”

“So you’re saying they kidnapped Shawn and brought them to the nest?” Gus exclaimed, alarmed.

“No,” de Winter answered, “He ran away with one of the vampire pets.  I followed them to Club Le Rouge.”

“Club Le Rouge?” Lassiter asked, searching his memory for any clubs he knew of that name that might be nearby.  But it was Jules who remembered.

“Oh!  Le Rouge et Le Noir!” she exclaimed.

“The Red and the Black,” Gus added.

“You speak French?” Jules asked him, sounding slightly surprised.

“It’s the title of a French novel,” Gus said, simultaneously giving himself an air of sophistication and avoiding revealing the true depth of his knowledge in the French language which was, in fact, severely limited to such simple phrases as ‘oui’, ‘non’, and ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’.  His French was still better than Shawn’s Spanish anyway.

Charles de Winter obviously did not care for the French or literary lesson.  Lassiter was only slightly less impatient, taking the time to ask his partner what, exactly, she knew about this club.

“It’s big with the role playing crowd,” Jules explained, “Especially dark, gothic role playing.  Witches, werewolves…”

“Vampires?” Gus suggested.

“And how do you know about this club?” Lassiter asked, staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s on our watch list for illegal activities,” Jules answered defensively.  Just as Gus didn’t feel the need to expand upon his knowledge in French, she also didn’t feel the need to mention the two week fling a few months ago with Greg ‘Lord Gideon’ Jameson. 

“Let’s go,” Charles de Winter said, obviously feeling there had been enough talk, and he spun on his heals so that his coat whipped about with a flourish that even Lassiter had to admit was cool.  De Winter started away with long strides into the shadows.

“Hey, Winter!” Lassiter called after him, “Don’t you think it might be faster to take the car?”  De Winter paused in his steps.

Five minutes later, they drove into a back alley which led to the shady looking entrance to the club.  Shawn was leaning against the door, next to the bouncer.

“Shawn!” Gus exclaimed, almost at the same time as Jules.  He looked his friend over searchingly with his eyes, lingering on his neck.  Shawn didn’t look hurt, though, just quiet.  It was the sort of quiet that Gus had learned to mean his psychic feelings had become a bit too overwhelming, probably giving him a headache.  Shawn managed to give them a small grin anyway as they got out of the car to greet him (or confront him; their adrenalin pumped auras gave them all a rather aggressive glow).  The grin slid away when his eyes fell on the vampire hunter.

“Charlie!” he cried with ersatz cheerfulness, “Did you get him?”

“No,” de Winter answered abruptly, “He got away.”  Shawn sagged slightly, looking relieved.

“Spencer!” Lassiter exclaimed, the tension and fear he had been feeling over the psychic exploding out in his relief at finding said detective apparently safe and sound just waiting for them to show up, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Did they get you?” Gus asked, “Were you bitten?”  Shawn gave Gus a bemused glance.

“No, Gus, I wasn’t bitten,” he answered, before turning to address Lassiter and Jules, “They seemed to like me, seeing as I stopped Stabby McStake-y-pants from killing one of them.”

“What?!” both detectives cried as one, sounding alarmed.

“Well what did you expect a ‘vampire hunter’ to do when he caught one, ask it out for blood and ice cream?” Shawn asked accusingly, despite the fact that he himself hadn’t thought about it before he had seen de Winter with the stake. 

“Wait, but, they were kidnapping us!” Gus insisted, not yet ready to switch sides so quickly, “They grabbed us, Shawn!”

“Yes, they did,” Shawn agreed, “Because they saw us with de Psycho.” 

“And how do I know they didn’t drain you and turn you into one of them?” Gus demanded, still looking skeptical.  Lassiter had heard enough, by then.  Whether this was some bizarre new form of gang war or a war between asylum escapees, the fact remained that Shawn had reported an attempted murder and de Winter needed to be brought in.

“Alright, Mr Winter,” Lassiter began, fully intending on making an arrest.  But when he turned around Charles de Winter was nowhere to be seen. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The dead were crowding Shawn’s dreams again.  Dead children, pale and bloodless, the oldest in their twenties and the youngest couldn’t be older than ten.  Most were teenagers, but something about being dead made them all look younger, though their eyes were ancient.  And the clung to him.  Silent, eyes ancient and pleading, their hands grasped at his shirt, at his new swishy coat, at his hands, his hair.  They weren’t evil or soulless, and somehow Shawn wasn’t afraid.  He felt something else entirely, something too deep and primal to be named.  It wasn’t fear.  It wasn’t pleasant.

And then the hands slowly pulled away, the crowd falling back into the impossibly yawning abyss from whence they came.  And Jean was there.

Here, in the dreamscape, there was no doubt that Jean Sanxay was as old as his clothing’s style, possibly older, and as dangerous as a coiled cobra poised to strike.  And he did have the teeth for it, though somehow Shawn hadn’t seen them before.  And Shawn somehow knew, in the way one does in dreams, that this vampire was not just a figment in his head, and that it could hurt him, even here.  This was not just a dream.

“Psychic,” Jean said in greeting, something ritualistically formal in the way he bowed in greeting.

“Jean Sanxay,” Shawn answered, imitating the bow though he felt a bit wrong footed, like he had been cast in play but hadn’t been given the script.  And then, because he really couldn’t help himself, he said, “So you are a vampire, then?”

“I am what you see.  If you care to look.”  The man was smiling.  That wasn’t reassuring; there were far too many teeth.   Still, Shawn got the hint to stop staring and start _looking_.

There was more to _see_ here than there had been back at the club.  The colors were the same, but even sharper, like those of the dead.  And there were layers upon layers.  He was far more complex than anyone Shawn had ever tried to look at before, the weight of ages far beyond the lifespan of a normal man.  There were dark shadows, hints of the monster lurking just beneath the skin.  But there wasn’t Evil.  There wasn’t mindless violence or cruelty, not even pettiness.  Nor was there Good.  The vampire simply was.  At once more than human and less than human; certainly older than human.  He had the soul of a predator, but not the heart, and there wasn’t the taint a serial killer would have.

“You have killed,” Shawn said at last, “But you aren’t a killer.”

“And you are a child who discovered fire,” Jean answered, his eyes deep with curiosity and interest, “And yet you are not burned.”

Shawn frowned, then blurted out on a sudden whim, “Justin Rivers.  Is…was he one of yours?”

The vampire considered, tilting his head in a distinctly animalistic manner, like cat before a pounce.

“I do not know this child, but I felt his passing all the same.  He was consumed by the sun.”

“What does that mea…”

And in the next moment, mid-word, Shawn was suddenly wide awake.  He was alone, not so much as an echo of the vampire left burrowed in his head.  It was disconcerting, not least because he didn’t know why he had woken, or if it was the vampire who had unexpectedly been called away.

Shawn was really beginning to hate psychic dreams.

It was early, but he was too awake now to sleep.  And he didn’t want to dream again.  Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of bed instead of snuggling down once more, and staggered into the kitchen.  First things first, he needed to eat.  And then…then, he had an idea that maybe it was time to start considering Lex’s case.  It was time to meet the father.

~~~~~~~~

Gus listened long enough to learn that Shawn was not in immediate danger and then hung up on him.  The second call went straight to voicemail.  In hind sight, calling at four in the morning may not have been Shawn’s best plan.  For a moment, he considered trying to go back to sleep versus waiting until it was properly daytime, versus immediately getting to work on the case.  In the end, he called the one person he was certain could appreciate his dedication to his work.  Or perhaps the one person he had a psychic link to that wasn’t currently asleep.

“Lassie!”

The answer was slow in coming, Lassiter’s voice husky.  “…Spencer?”

Perhaps the detective had been half asleep after all, though Shawn still didn’t sense outright annoyance, which was an improvement over most people he might think to contact at four in the morning.

“I’m going to confront a potential killer.  I need backup.”

“You need to leave confronting potential killers to the police,” Lassiter answered, sounding much more alert now.

“We can meet at the Psych office.  I’ll bring the donuts.”  And in the middle of Lassiter’s “Damn it Spe…” Shawn hung up, confident that the detective would meet him.  He spared half a though to wondering if he’d be able to convince Jules as well before deciding he really didn’t want to deal with her sleep deprived morning self.

The world at four in the morning, slowly creeping on towards five, was empty and surreal.  The donuts turned out to be delightfully hot and fresh, the first batch of the day.  He stopped for breakfast tacos as well, and coffee for Lassiter.

Despite the stops, Shawn still beat the detective to the office.  That didn’t worry him though; he simply felt a sureness in his bones that Lassiter was on his way.  And just as Shawn was unwrapping his taco, the man arrived.

“Shawn!” he began as he marched through the door, annoyance quivering through his colors intermixed with concern and intrigue, “What is this all about?”

“Breakfast?” Shawn offered, motioning his hand over the food and in particular towards the coffee and taco he had had set aside for Lassiter.  Slowly, and still scowling at him, Lassiter eased his way into the room before finally accepting the offering.

The meal was strangely comfortable; Lassiter’s presence familiar and calm, despite the expectant aura surrounding him.  The coffee in particular went a far way towards smoothing out the annoyed wrinkles swirling through his colors.

As they finished off the last donut (Shawn wanted to do rock paper scissors; Lassiter reached over while Shawn was shaking his fist and broke the donut in half), Shawn found himself suddenly reluctant.  It had all felt a bit urgent when he woke up, as though somewhere in his brain an alarm clock was ringing shrilly and demanding his attention turned towards Justin Rivers.  But now, as the pale morning shadows slowly shrank before the growing light, he didn’t really want to continue.

There was a reason he avoided killers.  And it wasn’t because they were dangerous.  Danger meant excitement and adventure, it meant heroics and dramatics and bonding with his friends.  It meant stretching his brain in the way it was meant to be stretched.But the aura of a true murderer…they stank of something inhuman.  Or perhaps something so primaly human that it left a stain upon the civilized soul.   They all had different flavors; even his limited contact with them as a psychic thus far told him that.  They felt sick, or dead, or they burned.  The letter of Justin’s dad felt black with grief, and that was when Justin was still alive.

“Spencer?”  There was definite concern in the awkward way Lassiter was looking at him, as though he were afraid back pats were going to be in order and wasn’t sure he was up to it.

“I’ll get the folder,” Shawn answered, bouncing up quickly and avoiding the edges of Lassiter’s concern that flickered towards him as he passed by.  He explained the case.  He left out the vampires.

Lassiter was furious when he mentioned Lex’s attempt at contacting the police.  He also agreed that the letter looked sinister.  And of course he immediately wanted to start the official process which was exactly the opposite of what Shawn was actually going for.

“Right,” Shawn said quickly when he saw Lassiter going for his phone, “I want to go see him.”

Lassiter paused in dialing.  “You want to go see him.  Of course you do.  Why wouldn’t you want to go and visit a deranged killer.”

“I’m sensing some sarcasm here.  And that you find my rugged bravery sexy.  But mostly sarcasm.”

Lassiter flushed red.  “I…you…Spencer!”

Lassiter was growing annoyed again, but he wasn’t actually angry…oddly panicked if anything…so Shawn didn’t worry about it.  “Right,” he said instead, “So here’s my plan.  I go in, psychically analyze the man, and if he turns psycho on me I’ll call you to rush in and save me.”

“Or we can call this in, get the proper warrants, and you can help interrogate him at the precinct.”

“That will take too long.  Besides, I just want one good look, maybe a handshake.  You don’t want to waste all those resources on someone who may be innocent do you?”

“That’s what those resources are for.  And I’m not sending a civilian in, alone, while I hang back as back up.”

“But I need a Gus for this mission!  Don’t be a frowny leprechaun, Lassie!  Fine, how is this…you be my temporary Gus and we go in together.  Then, if it doesn’t check out, you can call in the big guns.”

In the end they compromised.  Lassiter called it in and re-opened the official investigation, but he let Shawn come with him to psychically analyze the suspect when he went to ask questions.

“And for the record,” Lassiter said when they were finally ready to go out the door, “If anyone is Gus on this mission, it’s you.”

Gus still had his phone turned off.  Shawn felt vaguely uneasy about this, but chalked it up to nerves.  After all, they were about to confront a man who may or may not have killed his own son.





	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Shawn wanted to go in alone, wired up.  Lassiter still wanted to drag the man down to the station but he still didn’t have the proper permit to do that.  They compromised.

“Hello!  We’re your new neighbors from down the street!”  Shawn threw an arm around Lassiter, beaming enthusiastically before the detective had a chance to start his ‘I’m the police’ spiel he had been planning.  Lassiter’s aura felt spiky beneath his arm, but comfortable and familiar all the same.  It was reassuring, like a shield in the face of the darkness radiating dully from the stranger at the door.

Mr. Rivers was frowning at them, eyes twitching at the sight of the close contact between two men.  He was a large man, muscled, the sort that always made Lassiter twitchy to go for his gun.  Shawn could sense Lassiter’s thoughts sliding towards his holster though he made no physical movement of any kind.  Hesitantly, Shawn stuck out his hand for the man to take, ignoring the way Mr. Rivers’s hand was clinched tightly in a fist.

For one long moment, all the potential directions this could take hung stretched between them tight and hot.

And then all at once it snapped, something behind Mr. Rivers’s eyes broke, and before they quite understood what was happening he was stumbling upon them.

There was no pain.  There was a sudden heavy weight resting evenly over their shoulders.  And a great deal of wet burrowed into Lassiter’s shoulder.  Mr. Rivers sobbed heavily, relentlessly.  To Shawn it felt like a ten foot wave suddenly crashing over him and driving him into the depths.  Somehow, he anchored himself to Lassiter’s strong steadiness, felt his bewildered horror at being cried on by this boulder of a man, his solid belief in the strength of the law, his intense desire for Good to triumph, his fondness for his weapons, he records, his friends.  Lassiter was grounding.

No longer drowning in a sea of horrified grief and regret, Shawn slowly reached to pat the crying man on the back.  Lassiter was already doing the same, saying an awkward and slightly repulsed, “There, there,” as he did.

In the end, Mr. Rivers invited them.  At Shawn’s practiced glance around the room, all seemed perfectly normal; not the sort of house that harbored someone who would murder their own son.  There was a crucifix on the wall admist other nicknacks, flowers and birds.  Probably displayed by the wife; he could see her in the pictures, a plump smiling woman dressed in her Sunday best with her arms around a young man.  In another photo, standing with the man. Compared to the strong smiling man in the photo, the Mr. Rivers that stood before them now seemed diminished somehow.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbled at them once they were safely on the couch with an entire coffee table in between them and him so it was unlikely he could start crying on them again like that. “It’s just…it’s just…you reminded me of my son.  I thought…I hated what he was…I hated him…and then he died.  I thought he was dead to me, but he wasn’t, oh God, this is so much worse.  Coffe?  Tea?”

“Actually,” Lassiter answered, before Shawn could come up with anything more to say, “We’re here to investigate the death of your son.”

“And they let you work together?  Aren’t there some sort of…fraternization rules?”

Lassiter’s ‘He’s not on the force,’ overlapped with Shawn’s ‘We’re not actually together.’  There was an awkward silence.  “So,” Shawn continued before the silence could grow too creepy, “Can you tell us anything about the death of your son?”

“They said it was an accident,” Mr. Rivers answered, the faint aura going heavy over his features, “hydrogen got mixed up among the air canisters for the balloon.  Then there must have been a spark…it’s a punishment.  I know it is.  For abandoning my son.”  And he fell once more into heavy grief ridden sobs.

“Thank you,” Lassiter said quickly, his colors alarmed by the renewed show of deep emotion, “You’ve been very helpful.  But we have to go now.”

The moment they were outside, Shawn nearly stumbled at the relief of the sudden absence of the heavy grief saturating the house.  Lassiter was staring at him, waiting.  It took a moment for Shawn to realize he wanted Shawn’s assessment of the man.

“He wasn’t acting,” was all Shawn could say, “But…but…the balloon wasn’t an accident.  It feels…the case feels incomplete.  Like his ghost isn’t quite at rest.”

“…do you want a hot dog?”

“What?  Lassie, are you taking me out for food?”

“Well, you look a bit…never mind.  Isn’t that what you and Guster usually do?  Invade crime scenes and then go out to eat?”

“Awe, Lassie, you’re doing great as replacement Gus!  Sure…I could use a hot dog.”

“I’m not Gus.”

They did get hot dogs, but then Lassiter had to turn into a Grumpy Gus and insisted on going in to work.  Without his replacement Gus or his real Gus, Shawn felt a bit at loose ends.  Finally, he decided on the obvious choice for a next step in his investigation and set off to inspect the place where Justin’s hot air balloon came from.  Sure, setting off on his own violated every rule in investigative safety (as learned through various movies rather than an actual investigator’s manual), but the mid afternoon sun was shining brightly and in complete contrast to the creepy vampire hunt two nights before.  It didn’t feel like the sort of day that had bad things happen.

And he was all set to start off completely solo, on his own.  Then he realized he didn’t actually know where it was.  A quick phone search did nothing to relieve his ignorance.  Momentarily defeated, he returned to Psych.  It’s just as well he did.  Gus still wasn’t back.  But Lex was there, waiting for him.

Shawn stared at him, at the miserable swirl of grief that still clung to the man, and immediately thought, “I’m missing something.”  The thing he was missing buzzed at him, niggling at the back of his mind, and still he couldn’t guess at what it was.  He just knew he was missing something important, and that it had something to do with the way Lex hovered before the door and anxiously played with a pendent on a chain that Shawn was quite sure had been a gift from his boyfriend.  It also had something to do with the letter Mr. Rivers wrote his son.

It would come to him in time. It always did.  And it turned out that Lex did know the way to the hot air balloons.

The afternoon was growing late as they walked together.  Shawn was tempted to call Lex his replacement replacement Gus, but the man was so shadowed in grief that he couldn’t quite bare to associate Gus’s name with that.  Besides, it felt disloyal to Lassiter.

“I knew he had a balloon, you know,” Lex said as they walked, “He talked about his father taking him up…he loved his father, you know, that bastard.  And…and…I’d never seen it…he promised but he never…not until that day.  I suppose he wanted it to be a surprise.”

And quite ironically, it was as he said the word ‘surprise’ that the two men reached out and grabbed them.

Shawn couldn’t hold back the pained cry as his head met with a brick wall for the third time in so many days.  Then he blinked blurredly at two familiar scowling faces.

“Hello Tubman.  Lawrence.  Lassiter’s been looking for you.”

Their answer was a sock to the gut.  Beside him, he could hear Lex cry out.  And then, deep in the shadows of the alley, something darker moved.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“It’s Truman, Psycho,” Truman growled while Lawrence struggled to hold onto Lex.  Lex might not have been a large man but he was making good use of his bony elbows.  Unfortunately, even bad cops receive training for detaining people who don’t want to be detained and it didn’t look like Lex was going anywhere.

And then the shadows pounced.

Shawn didn’t see exactly what happened.  The shadows seemed to distort things somehow, so that at one moment he thought he saw a swarm of bats, and then it was most definitely dogs, and then he was quite sure he had seen neither and that they had always been human forms who had dragged the cops off them and deeper down the alley until they could no longer hear their panicked screams.

And then it was just Shawn, and Lex, and a man who would have been at home in a PBS drama.

“Jean Sanxay,” Shawn said, bowing in the way they had in the dream.  Somehow it came more naturally in that moment.  Jean smiled, his teeth somehow not quite revealed to be fangs, while something red glinted in the corner of his mouth that Shawn immediately decided, for his own peace of mind, that that had to be his tongue.

“Psychic,” Jean said in return, bowing in the same manner before addressing Lex as, “Child.”  Before Lex could overcome his fear to take offence at being called a child, Jean turned to speak again to Shawn. “Your danger is reaching its peak, alas, too soon for the setting of the sun.  Hurry to your friends, Psychic, but be watchful.  Be _watchful_.  The hunter is on the prowl.”  And then he was swallowed by the shadows and gone.

Slowly, shaking, both men stumbled back out of the alley and into the sunlight.

“What was that?” Lex managed to ask at last, but Shawn wasn’t attending.  Jean’s words swirled through his head; what did he mean by danger?  What did he mean by hurry to his friends?  And a cold sensation settled in his chest when he suddenly tried to recall when was the last time he had heard from Gus.  And he knew deep in his bones that they needed to hurry.

Lex led the way, not knowing why they had to jog but too jittery and anxious from the earlier attack to question it.  And then they rounded a corner, and saw a balloon.

The balloon was rising, slowly, only just inflated.  The basket beneath it was rather crowded.  There was Gus, for one.  And Lassiter, who Shawn hadn’t expected at all and yet somehow wasn’t surprised when he saw him.  And there was Charles de Winter.

Out of the three of them, Charles was the only one standing free, smiling fiercely as he watched Shawn’s approach.  Lassiter and Gus were handcuffed.  And the balloon was rising, slowly rising, and it would only take a few more seconds to be too high to catch.  So of course Shawn did the only sensible thing, which is to say the exact opposite of what Gus and Lassiter were willing at him to do.  He ran for it and jumped, shouting back for Lex to call for back up.  It wasn’t until he was dangling from the basket’s rim as the ground receded from beneath his feet that his brain caught up and told him that this was a very stupid plan.

The most surreal moment was when Charles de Winter grabbed his hand and then helped him the rest of the way into the balloon.

“Charlie,” Shawn said in greeting as he crowded himself between Gus and Lassiter.  They were both gagged, otherwise they’d probably have been shouting at him for his stupidity.  Or shouting at him because his leaning into their bound arms rather hurt, but Shawn managed to pick that up anyway and shifted himself.  They were also half stripped, anything of any use for picking a lock had been removed.

“Psychic,” Charles said back to him, a mad glint in his eye.  He said the title completely differently from Jean.  For Jean it was a title, an honor.  For Charles, it sounded like a curse.  “I should have known, when you stopped me from killing the vampire.”  And then the man was holding a gun.  It probably was loaded with silver bullets.  They really really shouldn’t have assumed a man who called himself a vampire hunter was harmless.  “He said you were a consultant.  An expert in the paranormal.  He didn’t say you were one of them.  And you shall not suffer a witch to live.  Of course, a stake doesn’t work for your type.  Isn’t that right, Gus?  Can you tell me, expert, the best way to kill a witch?”

Unbidden, he remembered the words of Jean Sanxay in the dreamscape.  ‘He was consumed by the sun’.

“Normally, I use the power of the sun in a less…explosive quality.  But for you…I think you need to burn.”

Shawn swallowed, then managed to find his voice.  “They aren’t psychics.  Let them go.”

“They have made their allegiance known.  Your researcher…and your lover.  Doubly do you deserve these flames.”

“My…wait…what?  You think…why?”

“I saw you together, leaving the Summer home.  Rivers the Thief…I will visit them soon as well. Now…”

He felt so utterly stupid to have missed all this.  He was a psychic, and he still couldn’t see.  But he could feel the impending explosion, practically taste it on his tongue, and he felt so impotent to do anything.  And he felt the approaching sharp end of the crucifix seconds before it entered his side.

It felt oddly similar to being punched in the gut by Tubman, rather than being stabbed.  Shawn didn’t even cry out, though Gus and Lassiter did, jerking harshly against their bindings.

“Best way to kill a witch, crosses and fire,” de Winter informed him, as though this were an important lesson he was imparting to eager pupils.  Then he took something out of his deep pockets.  It ticked when he turned it on.

“Seriously?” Shawn managed to gasp out his fingers reaching out impulsively to curve around the metal still piercing his side, “A ticking time bomb?  Is that how you want to kill me?”

“It will set off the hydrogen, and the sun will have you,” De Winter answered with the calm fervor of the truly insane.  And then Charles de Winter tipped his head in goodbye, and calmly stepped out of the basket.  And directly onto a roof, so perfectly timed that he had no more trouble than as though he had gotten off a bus.  And the balloon continued to rise, with all three of them handcuffed inside.

Shawn managed to pull of Lassiter’s gag, and was greeted with , “Spencer you idiot, what were you thinking!”  Lassiter removed Gus’s gag, but surprisingly, Gus didn’t join in the shouting at Shawn.

“Seriously?” Shawn demanded, “We’re about to die and you’re giving me the silent treatment?”

Gus’s response was to let out an alarming noise, half snarl half sob, and then say, “Don’t pull it out,” As though Shawn intended to do anything that might possibly make himself flare up in pain.  For the moment, the pain felt oddly distant and unreal.  His side was growing wet.  And the bomb was still ticking.

“Perhaps we could kick it out,” Shawn suggested, to which Lassiter and Gus immediately shouted, “NO!”

“We need to get out of these handcuffs,” Lassiter half growled.  Shawn nodded in agreement, absently patting himself for anything that could be of use, when his legs suddenly decided to stop supporting him.

He heard Gus and Lassiter shout, but their voices had gone foggy, distant.  He couldn’t properly sense them anymore.  And then a third voice called his name and he opened his eyes.

“Nat?”  Nat was frowning sadly; staring down at him.  He was sitting on the rim of the basket, his hands clutching the side so hard his knuckles were white.  “I think…” Shawn told him, his eyes drifting to the deadly canister hissing hydrogen up into the balloon, “I think I know what killed you.  The hydrogen…they’re his…they…he calls them the sun…I don’t know…he calls them the sun’s power…and he kills vampires…kids…who want to be…who look like them…he…finds them sleep…sleeping…and they breathe…you breathed…in the lungs, boom!  You suffocated.  In your sleep.  Sleep.”

“Damn it!  We can’t kick it, it could set it off,” Lassiter snarled from somewhere far away, “What we need is to get out of these damn handcuffs.  Maybe…with a knife…”

“Don’t you dare!” Gus screamed at him, “Don’t you dare!”

“He’ll die if we don’t, Guster!  We all will!  We just…damn it, just a pin!”

Shawn stared at Nat, half in Nat’s world already.  But he listened to Lassiter.  Because Gus and Lassiter had always been an anchor, no matter how far he wandered.  And lying on the verge of something vast and endless, he looked.  And he remembered.

“Clip!” he gasped, “Clip!”

“What’s he saying?” Lassiter asked, leaning closer, and then Shawn managed to gasp out, “Paperclip.”  And whatever shock had held Shawn before seemed to be fading, because suddenly the PAIN was there, rolling in like ice through his body and he clutched at the wound and the knife, slippery with blood.  And they didn’t understand him.  Gus and Lassiter and Shawn were going to die, because they couldn’t see and they didn’t understand.  Until they did.

“Paperclip!” Gus screamed, “The cross!  The cross!”

“You said not to move it,” Lassiter answered.

“Not that cross, the cross!  Around his neck.  If we can just reach…”

There was no way to reach it.  They couldn’t bend over; Shawn had fallen too far.  Shawn could feel the explosion building, soon, too soon, there was no more time…

And Nat reached over and took Shawn’s hand.  He took his hand and Shawn could feel it.  It wasn’t quite solid, it melted through him and felt like ice, like the touch of death, and Nat ground his teeth as though it burned, but he moved.  He moved Shawn’s hand and together Shawn’s fingers crept beneath his shirt, grasped the shoelace and pulled.  The cross made of paperclips still hung around his neck on the shoestring necklace, and with Nat straining and Shawn pushing, together they pulled it up and up and up, until Gus’s warm fingers were there, grasping.

And Nat pulled free, and Shawn’s hand dropped.  The ice spread and the world dimmed.  And at their feet, the bomb ticked.

When it did explode, the entire basket swayed, but the hydrogen didn’t go off.  It had exploded midair after Lassiter had tossed it over the side towards the ocean.  Gus huddled over Shawn, warm and alive, and Shawn grasped at him like an anchor while the world tried to slip away and burning pain warred with ice through is body.

Lassiter brought the balloon down.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

When Shawn woke up in the Psych office to find Nat watching him, he almost expected it.

“Does this place still get the Universe cable network?” he asked instead of the more pertinent question of ‘Did I die again?  And is it going to stick this time?’.  Nat grinned lightly at him and shrugged.

“It’s your place.  You tell me.”

“What can you tell me?”

Nat sat down next to him, still smiling contentedly.  “They’re going after the Hunter, you know.  Do you want to watch?”

They turned on the television.  It was tuned into a familiar house.

“I knew I was missing something,” Shawn said as the final puzzle piece clicked into place, “Luthor cared about Justin…they had a link.  Couples do, I think.  But Mr. Rivers…his link was twisted under his grief.  And the letter.  I saw it and I forgot.  It wasn’t Mr. Rivers who killed his son.”

“Was it the Hunter?” Nat asked, pulling a bag of popcorn out of nowhere as he stared at the screen, though it was pretty calm at the moment.  The sun had just set, but somehow they could see everything as clear as day.

“Don’t you know?” Shawn asked.

“Dude, I told you, we don’t know anything.  We aren’t psychic.”  Before Shawn could start on his big reveal, there was movement on the screen.  Charles de Winter melted out of the shadows and approached the screen.

“So it was the Hunter,” Nat said, sounding satisfied as he munched on his popcorn.

“No,” Shawn answered, stealing a handful for himself, “No…it was his hydrogen.  He was hiding his canisters in plain sight, mixed in with the others…I thought at first it was just an accident.  But he called Rivers a theif.”

“So it was the dad,” Nat said then, as they watched Charles crack open a window and climb inside.  The picture zoomed in to follow him into the house.

“I didn’t say that,” Shawn said, rather enjoying himself despite being almost dead.  It was hard to feel frightened in this place, it seemed cloaked in a deep sense that, come what may, everything was alright.

And then there was a woman screaming.  The plump smiling woman he had noticed earlier in the photos.  Mrs. Rivers.

“She hated the fact that her son was gay.  She saw the hydrogen canister and she switched it for the balloon.  She was angry…furious…but she was undecided.  She decided to leave their fate to God…if the hydrogen ignited or didn’t ignite, it was out of her hands.”

On the screen, Charles de Winter had his gun in one hand and a canister in the other.  He advanced on the woman, and Shawn felt a tendril of anxiety for the first time since he had arrived to the astral Psych office.  He didn’t really want to watch another person die, even if they were a murderer.  Nat must have felt the same way because he was suddenly grabbing Shawn’s arm and peaking through his fingers.

And then the cavalry arrived.

“Aha!  I knew he’d figure it out!” Shawn exclaimed proudly as Lassiter led the charge into the room, weapons raised.  But the anxiety grew worse.  Because as much as he didn’t want to watch a murder killed, he really didn’t want to watch a friend.

Lassiter knew what he was doing.  Shawn found himself hunched like Nat, peaking through his own fingers.  The popcorn fell to the floor and then vanished, forgotten by both.

It was over in seconds, though it felt like longer.  While Lassiter led the way straight on, Jules came from behind.  Charles de Winter managed one eratic shot and then he was down and being handcuffed.  And Lassiter was lying on the ground.  For a long five minutes, Shawn forgot to breathe. Luckily he didn’t have to.

And then Lassiter sat up, pulling at his shirt.  He was wearing a bullet proof vest.  He was wearing a silver bullet proof vest.  No one was dead.  Not Lassiter, not Jules, not Mrs. Rivers and not de Winter.

“Yes!” Nat cheered, throwing suddenly there again popcorn into the air.  Shawn dropped back into the couch, breathing deeply.  The arrests unfolded on the screen.  Nat and Shawn watched them for a moment before Nat began to squirm with boredom.

“Want to watch American Idol?”

“Sure.”

They watched it until Shawn felt something change.

“Are you dying?” Nat asked, looking somewhat alarmed, even though Nat was already dead and didn’t seem to be finding it a great calamity.

“I don’t think so.  It feels like I’m waking up.”

And Shawn opened his eyes.  His friends, his family were by his bed.  And all their colors were bright, and everyone was very much alive.

The End.

It’s nice to be able to say that.  The End.


End file.
